Date: 2018-09-26 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Fantasy; Space Opera; Romance; Adult; Space; Adventure; Science Fiction Romance; Autistic Spectrum Disorder; Action
Description: McCall Richter finds criminals, con men, and deadbeats better than anyone else in the empire. She’s proud of her success and that she owns her own spaceship, especially since she struggles to understand human motivations, can’t tell when people are lying to her, and is horrible at recognizing faces. Being autistic in the empire is frowned upon—and there’s a handy normalization surgery to correct it—but she’s managed to prove her worth and avoid irking the tyrannical regime. Except for one thing. Two years ago, she liberated the android, Scipio, from an imperial research facility where he was t

Fractured Stars

Lindsay Buroker

Copyright © 2018 by Lindsay Buroker

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To my mom and dad. I was a quirky kid who didn’t want to be touched, didn’t make eye contact, didn’t want to talk to strangers, and drove them crazy twirling around the house while spouting about my passions. Not much has changed. They love me anyway.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my beta readers and friends Sarah Engelke, Cindy Wilkinson, and Rue Silver, awesome people who keep reading all the stuff I write in its raw form. Also, many thanks to my talented editor, Shelley Holloway—I don’t know what I’ll do if she retires one day. Lastly, thanks to my cover designers at Deranged Doctor Design. I couldn’t decide if I wanted an ice planet or a field of stars for the background of this, and they patiently gave me both to choose from.

1

The closet in the captain’s cabin of the Star Surfer held the requisite amount of clothing one would expect from a female occupant, but the variety was decidedly limited. Ten white brushed-cotton shirts hung on hangers, six pairs of soft blue-and-gray Rocket X exercise pants were tidily folded on a shelf, and four pairs of identical mesh ship shoes were lined up equidistant from each other on the deck. Bags of unopened shirts and pants in the same style and colors as those on display rested in cubbies, awaiting their turn in the rotation. A stack of three shoe boxes also waited.

McCall Richter, captain and owner of the Star Surfer, frowned at the boxes. “That’s concerning, Junkyard.”

The hundred-and-fifty-pound mutt sprawling on the deck of the cabin twitched a floppy ear.

“I’m down to three backup Hemingtons. With my rotten luck, they’ve already stopped production of the LX-7s and have thrown some new crap up in stores with an entirely different fit.”

A twinge of panic ran through McCall’s veins, and she dug her netdisc out of her pocket and thumbed the holodisplay to life over the palm-sized circular device. Her Hemingtons, the only ones she’d found that fit just right, were listed on the store’s sys-net site. Only seven left in stock. Who knew if there would ever be more?

“We’re too far from the core worlds to order instantly, but I’m putting this in now before it’s too late. I should get all seven to be safe, right? Definitely.”

As she tapped a finger in the air to press the holo button, Junkyard twitched his ear again.

McCall sighed and lowered the netdisc. “You’re right. I came to put on my off-ship clothes, not shop.”

She waved toward the set of garments tucked in the back of the closet, a smaller collection of identical clothing, sturdy long-sleeve shirts, trousers with numerous utility pockets, and broken-in waterproof hiking shoes suitable for the vagaries of ground travel.

“Though why I agreed to go to this meeting, I don’t know. I don’t need to network with people. I am people.”

Junkyard lifted his head, ears perking as she grabbed the hiking shoes.

“All right, that sounded arrogant. I know. But seriously, all I ever get from these events is other people asking for favors. And it’s not like I will ever want favors from them in return. Even if I did, yuck. You know I hate asking anyone for anything. Or relying on other people.” McCall shuddered. Dealing with people at all was always so… fraught. And tiring. Why did she let herself get talked into these events?

Junkyard sprang to his feet and wagged his tail.

McCall looked at the shoes in her hand. “Sorry, boy. We’re just landing for a meeting. I’ll take you for a romp somewhere afterward, but I can’t bring you to the conference center.”

Junkyard refused to believe her. He wagged vigorously at her—and the shoes. Off-ship shoes. He knew which ones were which.

“Listen, I’ll ask Scipio to look for a place where we can set down afterward so you can run around. There won’t be grass though. Sherran Moon is a red-rock hell where spiders big enough to eat you crawl out of all the crevices. We—”

A shudder coursed through the ship, and the deck trembled under McCall’s socked feet. “What in all three suns’ hells was that?”

Junkyard’s tail drooped, and he eyed the closet, his favorite hiding place. One of the few where he fit.

“Captain,” the detached male voice of her android business partner Scipio came over the communications system, “we are being pursued by an imperial law-enforcement vessel, model Imperial Charger, name Truncheon 4.”

A shot of fear rushed through McCall’s veins. She was a law-abiding imperial subject and ought to have no reason to worry about the enforcers, except for that one tiny incident…

“What do they want?” Cursing to herself, McCall jammed her shoes on without sitting down. She wobbled and almost pitched into the closet, her balance as reliable as always.

“Unknown. They have not opened communications with us, nor otherwise announced their intentions.”

The ship shuddered again, and McCall almost pitched over again. “I think they’re announcing their intentions now. Are they shooting at us? Are the shields up?”

“They are shooting extremely close to us, using what I believe are warning shots. I was uncertain if we should raise shields or take evasive maneuvers when being pursued by a law-enforcement vessel. Standard imperial law states that we should stop and prepare to be boarded.”

“Uh huh. Raise the shields.”

“Excellent, Captain. I am raising them in accordance with Comet Cruiser Defensive Protocol Number—”

“Good. I’ll be right there.”

McCall ran into the corridor with Junkyard trotting after her. A left turn, four steps, and she strode into Navigation and Communications.

Scipio sat in the pilot’s seat and started to rise. She waved for him to stay and headed for the co-pilot’s seat, though she stood behind it, leaning against the backrest instead of settling in. She fiddled with a bracelet she always wore on her left wrist, turning it around and around, barely conscious of the tinkle of the old brass charms.

A wrap-around holographic display provided almost a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the area around the ship, so she had no trouble spotting the white law-enforcement vessel pursuing them. Scorch marks marred the belly of the craft, as if it had been hammered by e-cannons, and missing hull plating revealed circuits and conduits that shouldn’t have been exposed to space.

“They’re damaged?” McCall asked.

“Yes, according to our sensors, the charger is heavily damaged.”

“We didn’t do it, right?” She couldn’t imagine Scipio wantonly firing at law-enforcement vessels.

“Correct.”

The Truncheon 4 fired again, a white e-cannon round blowing past just above the Star Surfer.

“Do they know that?” McCall asked. “Why are they shooting at us?”

McCall sat in the co-pilot’s seat so she could reach the comm panel. Was it possible this was a mistake and the captain of the other ship believed the Star Surfer had been responsible for damaging his or her vessel?

“I am unable to interpret human motivations and emotions to gauge reasons for their actions with more than forty-four percent accuracy.”

“Yeah, you and me both.” As McCall reached for the controls, intending to open a channel to the other ship, a small alert popped into the air above the comm panel.

“They have opened communications,” Scipio said, “and are requesting a response to their hail.”

“I see that.” McCall looked at him, debating whether to ask him to leave NavCom so he wouldn’t be visible on the video display.

He wore an impeccable Kuan-and-Chien hand-tailored gray suit with a dashing blue cravat and an imperial puff cap with a band that matched the neckwear. Usually, she made him the face of her tiny business, but today, that might be a bad idea. With his pale skin, precisely trimmed brown hair, and silver eyes, there was no chance of someone not recognizing him as an android. That in itself wasn’t odd, as all manner of personal assistant, combat specialist, and translation and computation androids proliferated the dozens of planets and moons, hundreds of space stations, and thousands of ships in the Tri-Sun system. The problem was that he hadn’t been legally acquired.

“Do you want to wait in the back?” she asked.

“Should defensive maneuvers be required, I am a more able pilot than you, Captain,” he said, though she had no doubt he knew why she’d asked.

“Most people are. I flunked my pilot’s test three times. You know what I’m talking about, Scipio.”

He pursed his lips in Thoughtful Expression Number Two, as McCall had dubbed it. She was awful at judging what people were thinking based on facial expressions, but the few dozen expressions Scipio had been programmed with were precise and identical each time. She’d learned them well over the last two years they had worked together.

“I do indeed understand my need to avoid the notice of law-enforcement officers, Captain, but may I remind you that I am one of five thousand identical androids that were made in the NB-75 line? It is unlikely I would be identified as stolen property unless someone boarded and did a close scan to learn my serial number.”

“You weren’t stolen; you were liberated.”

“Or rescued, as I often think of it.” Scipio offered her Pleased Smile Number One. “I shall stay in my seat in order to assist you. I do not believe it is necessary, but you may wish to use the narrow camera angle so they will not see me in the feed.”

An irritated bleep came from the comm panel. A second attempt to hail them.

Not wanting to get in a real fight with that ship, even if it was damaged, McCall took a deep breath and answered the hail. She thought about keeping it to audio only, as she did when interacting with clients—if her preferred method of communicating via text wasn’t an option—but she didn’t want the officer to suspect her of hiding anything. The suns knew she couldn’t lie her way out of a maze with a single corridor, so she would prefer not to have to make the attempt.

“This is Captain McCall Richter of the Star Surfer.” She kept herself from demanding to know why they were firing on her ship, since politeness was always safest when dealing with imperial law enforcers. The government ought to adore her for all the criminals she’d helped them find over the years, but she had been paid for her services, and they would be quick to point that out.

“Sheriff Axton, Border Law Enforcement,” came a gruff grumble through the comm. Interestingly, a video display didn’t come up along with the voice. “My ship is damaged. I require yours. I am transporting prisoners to Frost Moon 3.”

McCall stared at the comm panel, hoping she had misunderstood the man. She was less than an hour from Sherran Moon and her meeting, and he wanted her to travel five days across the system to a moon around another planet? Or did he even want her along? He wasn’t proposing some trade where she handed over her ship while he marooned her on his damaged one, was he? How could she get out of this?

She looked over at Scipio. He might be able to stay out of the vid pickup for a comm call, but how would he avoid being noticed on a five-day voyage—potentially five days both ways—with however many strangers aboard?

“My ship isn’t properly equipped to handle prisoner transport, Sheriff,” McCall said.

“You have a brig.”

“I have one cell next to the refrigerated storage in the back, and there’s an environmental glitch I never bothered fixing. The temperature in the cell is equal to that in the lettuce bin next door.”

“That will suffice.” His gruff voice changed slightly, and he spoke the next sentence with relish. “Felons are supposed to suffer for their crimes.”

She could tell she was dealing with a real imperial hero here.

“You will slow your ship and prepare for boarding,” Axton said. “Then step aside while I take command for the duration of my mission.”

“We’re only an hour from Sherran Moon,” McCall said, taking one last stab at evading this fate, though it seemed inevitable. “Surely, you can abscond with a ship there that would be more suited to your mission.”

“Your ship is fast, and it’s here. We’re not absconding with it. We’re borrowing it for imperial business, and we are fully within our right to do so. Prepare for boarding.”

Before McCall could say anything else, the channel went dead.

“The Star Surfer is a fast vessel,” Scipio said, “refrigeration issues notwithstanding. It’s understandable that he would prefer it. Also, based on the scans I did, I read dangerously high temperatures in their reactor coils, and the ventilation duct for their environmental control unit has been melted shut.”

“Meaning they might not be able to make it to Sherran Moon?”

“Correct.”

“We could outrun them, couldn’t we?” McCall tapped her chin thoughtfully as she wondered what the consequences would be for doing so. A fine? She could afford to pay a fine. A mark on her record? That wouldn’t be ideal, but if it ensured Scipio wouldn’t be discovered and taken back to the factory where she’d found him…

“I advise you do not risk your livelihood or your freedom by fleeing, Captain. The empire can be draconian with its punishment. You are currently considered useful to them, and you have a great deal of freedom, compared to the typical subject. Do not risk changing that status. I will simply power down for the duration of the trip and remain in storage.”

McCall winced at the idea of Scipio boxed up in his closet for days. Even though he was an android, and she rationally understood that such wouldn’t truly be a punishment for him, she hated the idea. He and Junkyard were her best friends. It didn’t matter that they weren’t human. She wanted good lives for them.

“Before you do that, look up the Truncheon 4 and Sheriff Axton, will you? Let’s make sure everything they said was true and that these aren’t criminals impersonating them to get to my ship.”

“I have already done so, Captain, and the ship’s pilot, a Deputy Arjun Deshmukh, transmitted their identification codes. They appear to be legitimate officers.”

McCall sighed, wishing they hadn’t been.

“They are closing to boarding distance,” Scipio said. “They may lock a grab beam onto us shortly. Do you wish me to increase speed and evade them?”

McCall inhaled and exhaled slowly. “No.”

She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.

* * *

The ship was purple. Oh, it had been purple when they’d been firing shots at it and convincing the captain to slow down and prepare to be boarded, but it was even more purple up close.

Arjun “Dash” Deshmukh eyed it on the holodisplay as he manipulated the controls to extend the airlock tube toward the other craft. It wasn’t a girly purple like lavender or lilac or one of those flowers his grandmother had always tried to grow in the shrouded mists surrounding the Starseer temple back home. It was more of a dark violet. Not too unmanly, though Dash had a hard time imagining the burly, surly Sheriff Axton and all his cyborg muscles stepping off it in front of the prison mines on Frost Moon 3.

On the positive side, the purple ship—the Star Surfer, Dash reminded himself, being fully aware of its name and who owned the vessel—probably didn’t stink of burning metal and smoke inside. And its engines and maneuverability, if everything was fully functional, would make it a delight to fly. She was a Comet Cruiser, and from the model number, couldn’t be more than four years old.

A light beeped on a nearby control panel.

“Oxygen levels are falling,” the ship’s bland masculine voice announced. “If repairs are not made to the environmental control system in seventeen minutes, the ship will be rendered inhospitable for its human occupants.”

“Thanks for the update,” Axton growled insincerely, stalking into the room in the dark blue combat armor of a law-enforcement officer. He carried his helmet under his arm, leaving his typical constipated expression on display under his buzz-cut blond hair. A BlazTech rifle hung on a strap over his shoulder, as if he needed it to utterly pulverize people. “You got that tube attached yet, Dash?”

“Almost, sir.” Dash kept his expression neutral and his voice respectful, even if it would have been more pleasant to yank out his teeth with a pair of vibro-pliers. He was undercover here, and he’d already taken actions today that could blow that cover wide open. For now, he needed to stay on Axton’s good side.

“An engineer could have built a skywalk over to that ship with Zizblocks by now.”

“Oxygen levels are falling,” the ship started again.

Axton backhanded his fist into the wall, breaking the entire control panel. A few pieces tinkled to the floor, and the voice ceased speaking.

Perhaps staying on Axton’s “good side” was too lofty a goal to aspire to. He was understandably irate, given that their ship was too damaged to fly and the three Alliance vessels that had been responsible had all escaped nearly unscathed. They had been attempting to rescue two of the six prisoners Axton was taking to Frost Moon 3. Dash had done his best to aid the Alliance vessels without making it obvious, but he’d dared not be too inept at piloting, not under Axton’s scowling eyes. Dash’s cover was only useful as long as nobody in imperial law enforcement figured out where his true loyalties lay. If the thick-skulled Axton found out, the cyborg would likely break his neck on the spot.

“Yes, sir,” Dash said again and turned his back to his boss so he could concentrate on the task. And also so Axton wouldn’t see the distaste in his eyes.

“You said you know the captain?” Axton strode up behind him and put on his helmet.

“I’ve never met her in person or spoken to her, but I know her reputation.” Dash gritted his teeth, his mind shifting from his present predicament to his old job and old grievances.

McCall Richter—he had no idea if that was her real name—had cost him money and wasted time, not just once but on three separate occasions. She probably didn’t know it and wouldn’t care if she did, but she’d beaten him to locating criminals, delinquents, and debt evaders that could have made him a lot of money if he’d brought them in first. She didn’t even bring people in. She just found them and told the law enforcers or debt collection agencies where the miscreants were so their officers could apprehend them themselves. When that happened, the offer of a bounty was rescinded—and bounty hunters who’d been on the job weren’t paid.

Dash caught a growl rumbling deep in his throat. Axton must have heard it with his augmented ears because he looked over, his eyebrows rising behind his clear faceplate.

Dash cleared his throat. “She’s reputed to be smart, aloof, and eccentric. She won’t take vid calls and only accepts assignments sent via text messages. She claims she can find anyone and commands a high premium. From what I’ve heard, she can find anyone, so I guess people pay her asking price.”

“She likely to make trouble for us? Have a team of men working for her, ready to jump us when we step into her airlock?” Axton pulled his rifle from his shoulder and cradled it in his arms. He looked like he wanted that trouble.

“My scans only showed one human and one canine life sign on the ship.”

“She could still try something,” Axton mused. “Not everybody likes cooperating with the empire. Especially out here.” He waved vaguely to indicate the border planets and moons in the trinary star system, places where law-enforcement officers and ships were sparser than in the more populated and civilized core worlds.

“Her record says she pays her taxes and often works for the empire,” Dash said, even though he wouldn’t mind seeing Richter hoisted off her feet by a cyborg after his frustrations with her. But no honest imperial subject deserved that fate, especially if Sheriff Axton was doing the hoisting.

“So she should cooperate? Enh, I guess that’s good. We can get the prisoners transferred to her ship, drop them off, get some techs and parts, and come back out to fix the Truncheon before any scavengers try to salvage it. By all three suns, my life is a blessing, isn’t it?”

“Is that cyborg sarcasm, sir?”

Axton looked like he wanted to spit. Generally not a good idea while wearing a helmet with a faceplate. All he did was snarl.

If Axton thought his life was rough, he ought to try being the person working for him.

The indicator on the display flashed green. The tube was affixed to the airlock hatch on the other ship.

Connection secure, the display read.

The hatch on the Star Surfer opened, welcoming them in, or at least promising cooperation. Richter, it seemed, wasn’t going to make them cut their way in with a plastorch.

She probably didn’t want her fancy purple ship to be damaged. Dash wondered if she owned it outright. If she did, she made a lot more money than he ever had as a bounty hunter.

Let it go, Dash, he told himself.

That was his past career, one he’d abandoned years ago. He wasn’t some scruffy bounty hunter working for money now. He was helping the Alliance fight the tyranny of the empire, and they needed him. He had to focus on freeing those prisoners—at least one of them—without compromising his cover.

“I’ll go first,” Axton said when the computer deemed the tube pressurized and oxygenated.

With his fully self-sufficient combat armor, that wouldn’t matter to Axton, but Dash wore only his gray uniform trousers, shirt, and jacket, with a blazer pistol and a stun gun holstered at his belt. As he’d learned when he’d been transferred to Axton’s command, only sheriffs were deemed worthy enough to be provided a suit of combat armor.

“Don’t try anything shifty,” Axton growled over his shoulder before stalking into the tube.

An icy tendril of fear ran down Dash’s spine. Why would Axton say such a thing? Had Dash’s subtle sabotage during the battle not been as subtle as he thought?

As Axton strode through the umbilical cord to the other ship, Dash risked using one of the few talents he’d inherited via his mother’s mutated Starseer genes, mind reading. He’d been hesitant to poke into Axton’s thoughts since cyborgs in the imperial space fleet, as Axton had once been, received training to detect and fight off Starseer mental abilities, but he had to know. Did Axton suspect him?

Using an extremely light probe, Dash didn’t sense any specific thoughts, but he did sense suspicion marinating in the man’s mind. Great. Dash would have to be doubly careful for the rest of the mission. Arranging for the prisoners to escape might not be something he could risk.

Or would it be worth blowing his cover and risking his life to keep Rose Akerele from being interred in the prison mines? The Alliance needed her.

Axton looked back, and Dash hurried to catch up. They walked into the Star Surfer’s airlock one after the other and closed the outer hatch. A few clunks and beeps sounded, and Dash kept his back to the wall, uncomfortable with how close he had to stand to Axton in the confined space, both because he was an unpleasant man and because he might step on Dash’s foot in that armor and crush a few bones.

At six-foot-one, with a lean, muscular build, Dash wasn’t a small man, but it was hard not to feel diminutive next to a cyborg in combat armor. The nearly seven-foot-tall Axton was even more hulking than most cyborgs, men who’d once been chosen from regular fleet soldiers because of their intimidating builds. If one was going to spend thousands of tindarks on surgical implants and biomechatronic alterations to make super soldiers, one couldn’t start with a runt.

The hatch opened, and Axton ducked his helmet to stride into a small cargo hold that seemed more spacious than it was due to a lack of cargo. Not surprising since this wasn’t a freighter. This ship was sleek and fast and probably only carried supplies and equipment for the crew. The woman and her dog, if the sensor scans had been correct.

A low growl came from the hold, and Axton shifted a rifle toward the noise.

“Shit,” a woman said, her voice tense and alarmed. “Are you a cyborg?”

“What of it?” Axton demanded, his voice hard.

“Junkyard doesn’t like cyborgs.”

Another growl sounded. Dash stepped around Axton so he could see what was going on.

A woman stood in the middle of the hold, gripping the collar of the largest dog Dash had ever seen. The scruffy black, white, brown, and gray mongrel hadn’t lowered into an attack crouch, but it was baring its pointed teeth as its brown eyes bored into Axton’s chest. How could a dog tell a cyborg from a regular human being through an encasement of combat armor?

“You taught your dog to hate cyborgs?” Axton’s voice was low, dangerous.

Dash shifted his attention to the woman—McCall Richter, presumably.

She was about five and a half feet tall with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and a round face devoid of makeup, not even a smear of lipstick. She looked to be about thirty, but Dash knew from the reputation she’d established and how long she’d been in the business that she had to be closer to forty. She wore baggy many-pocketed trousers, hiking shoes, a loose white shirt, and a jacket a size too large for her. She didn’t appear to be overweight, but it was hard to tell what she looked like under that clothing. He thought she might have a cute smile, if she ever smiled, but she wore a consternated expression now, and even without his Starseer abilities, he sensed she was worried the dog would get loose, attack, and be shot.

“No,” McCall said. “He came that way. I found him in a junkyard on Demeter, so I don’t know his past. He’s got a lot of scars under his fur though. Someone beat him up at some point in his life.”

“If a cyborg beat him up, he wouldn’t be alive,” Axton said.

“Yes, charming of you to point that out. Let me put him in my cabin.”

McCall tugged on the dog’s collar, but it—he, she’d called him—sank lower and growled again, eyes still locked on Axton.

Dash was inclined to like a dog that hated Axton, but he did not say so. He drew his stun gun so he could shoot the dog if he escaped from McCall. Stunning him ought to keep Axton from drilling the dog between the eyes with his blazer rifle, which he seemed to be contemplating doing.

“Come on, Junkyard,” McCall urged. “Bacon treats in the cabin.”

The dog didn’t look pleased about leaving, but this last entreaty worked. He allowed her to pull him to the corridor leading out of the cargo hold.

“We’ll show ourselves around the ship,” Axton said. “Find a place to put the prisoners.”

McCall frowned back at him, and Dash sensed alarm from her. Alarm and fear.

Huh, what was this? Did she have something to hide?

“The cell I mentioned is back there by engineering.” McCall jerked her head toward the large cargo hatch in the back and a smaller hatchway near it. “If you need more space, the back four cabins up this corridor are free. The four closest to NavCom are mine for work or, uhm, storage.”

Dash arched his eyebrows. He hadn’t needed any otherworldly senses to hear the lie in that hesitation. What was she hiding? Was it possible the premier skip tracer of the Tri-Sun System wasn’t quite the darling of the empire he had assumed?

“Fine,” Axton said, heading toward the cell. “I’ll check it out and bring the prisoners over as soon as I can secure them. There’s not any time to waste.”

He hadn’t reacted to her fumble. Had he not noticed it? Or did he just have other matters on his mind?

Dash had only been the sheriff’s pilot for two months, so he couldn’t claim to be an expert on the man, but after witnessing his actions in battle, he didn’t think Axton was as dumb as he acted.

As Dash watched McCall tug her dog out of the cargo hold, he decided to do a little snooping around during the voyage to Frost Moon 3. If she was hiding something or was guilty of a crime the empire didn’t know about, Dash could offer up that information to Axton and maybe distract the sheriff from his suspicion of him.

If he had the bird dog pointed somewhere else, he would have an easier time figuring out a way to free the Alliance prisoners without ruining his cover. Besides—he smiled slightly to himself—he wouldn’t mind paying McCall back for all the times she had beaten him to the punch.

That wasn’t petty, he told himself. If she was indeed committing a crime or had in the past, she deserved to be brought to justice.

2

NavCom felt empty without Scipio in there. Her android partner did not require sleep, so McCall usually found him up there whenever she visited to check on the ship’s status and position en route.

She didn’t even have Junkyard for company since she’d locked him in her cabin. Usually, he had the freedom to roam the ship, but she dared not allow him out with that cyborg sheriff on board.

What was a cyborg doing in law enforcement anyway? The military was the organization that ran a cyborg program, altering young men in exchange for long enlistment commitments. They even had their own Cyborg Corps division. The sight of their red combat armor was enough to make enemies flee in the other direction, usually after leaving puddles behind. Whenever McCall had run across civilian cyborgs, they had always been retired—or AWOL—from the fleet.

She was on the verge of seeing what she could find in the sys-net on Axton when the hatch behind her opened with a soft hiss.

She tensed and turned in her seat, expecting the dyspeptic sheriff. But it was the man who’d come on board with him. He hadn’t been introduced or spoken a word during their meeting. Admittedly, she’d cut that meeting short because of the need to stow away Junkyard.

McCall eyed the man warily, wanting nothing more than to tell him NavCom was off limits, but he wore a law-enforcement uniform, the rank sewn around the cuffs proclaiming him a deputy. He had brown skin, dark eyes, and short black hair that was within regulation, though it was tousled instead of tidily combed. His nose had lost a few fist fights, and an old burn mark at his temple suggested his head had gotten in the way of a blazer bolt. He had a strong jaw with a couple of days’ worth of beard growth. No doubt, he wore it that way in some attempt to be sexy. Whether he was or not, she had no idea. She was a horrible judge of such things. It wasn’t until she got to know someone that she started to consider a person attractive or not, and then proceeded to ignore them regardless. She had proven herself inept at relationships in her youth and didn’t seek them out anymore.

The deputy glanced around NavCom, his gaze lingering on the piloting station, then looked at her.

McCall forced herself to hold his gaze for three seconds, though her natural inclination was to avoid eye contact. She always found it uncomfortably personal and hated when people looked at her.

He glanced at her wrist, and she realized she was twisting her bracelet. She forced her hands down, spreading them on her thighs. Damn it, her palms were breaking out in a sweat. How was she going to manage five days without blabbing everything about Scipio?

“I’m Deputy Dash,” he said and extended his hand.

“Dash?” she asked.

It didn’t sound like a name, and she wondered if she’d misunderstood. She always had a hard time understanding people with accents, though his was slight. She couldn’t guess what planet he hailed from.

“Dash. I only tell my real name to friends, lovers, and criminal overlords with dungeons and torture devices housed in their secret lairs.”

She stared at him.

“That was a joke,” he added.

“Oh. Was it funny?” She didn’t think so, but she wasn’t the best judge of such things.

“Other people have laughed.”

“They may have felt obligated since you’re in law enforcement and hold people’s fates in your hands.”

This time, he stared at her, his brow furrowing slightly.

She sighed. In addition to not always getting humor, she had a hard time remembering which things were appropriate to say to strangers and which things ought to remain solidly in the back of one’s mind. She hadn’t had to be socially adept, or even make the attempt, in some time, thanks to being independently employed and having established a reputation that made people want her whether she spoke smoothly at parties or not.

“Like I said, the name is Dash.” He shook his hand slightly for emphasis. “You’re McCall Richter, right?”

“Yes, I am.”

McCall made herself clasp his hand, though she didn’t like touching people, especially strangers. He would find it odd if she stuck her hands in her pockets, and she didn’t need either of the law enforcers thinking her odd.

Fortunately, his palm was dry, and he didn’t hold the grip overly long.

“And you’re a skip tracer, right?”

“Yes.” She assumed he or his sheriff had looked up her and her ship before deciding to seize it. They probably knew plenty about her. So why was he questioning her about things he already knew?

“I’d heard of you before this,” he said. “I used to be a bounty hunter.”

“Ah.”

She didn’t care about his former career and groped for an acceptable way to shoo him out of NavCom. Why hadn’t she thought to lock the hatch? That would have obviated the need for this awkward conversation. And hand touching.

“Have you heard of me?” He was back to looking at her eyes.

“No, sorry.” She couldn’t help it. She looked away. What was his problem with the staring?

“I used to do a lot of work around Aldrin’s moons and sometimes headed out to the Dark Reaches. Found tons of people skulking around in the Trajean Asteroid Belt.”

“Ah.” She almost said more, offering up some of the data she’d put together on the statistics of people likely to flee to the asteroid belt and join the pirate gangs out there for protection, but she didn’t want to encourage more conversation. Especially when he had such a probing gaze. Did he find her suspicious? She always had a hard time reading people, but something about him seemed odd.

As did the way he was still looking at her. Scrutinizing her.

“Do you need something?” McCall asked. “Did you get your prisoners stashed away?”

“Sheriff Axton handled that, and yes, they’re in your refrigerated cell. I’m a pilot. Axton asked me to familiarize myself with your ship’s controls. In case you’re trouble and we need to lock you in that lettuce bin you mentioned.” He smiled.

“Is that another joke?” She hoped so. She wouldn’t fit in the lettuce bin. Technically, she could fit in the walk-in refrigerator, but maybe she shouldn’t point that out.

Dash scratched his jaw. “Are you truly a skip tracer? Someone who’s an expert at human motivations and finding people who skip bail or flee debt collectors?”

Her cheeks heated. She might not be great at reading people, but she sensed the insult—the disbelief—in his tone.

“I track people down using the data available in the sys-net, not by their joke-telling skills.” She waved jerkily at the control systems. “Familiarize yourself with whatever you want. I need something to eat.”

She rushed out, feeling his eyes boring into the back of her head.

These law officers had only been on her ship a few hours, and she already felt like a mess, like she was raising suspicions left and right. She wanted to talk to Scipio, who never stared at her or made her feel uncomfortable, but he’d shut down his systems and locked himself in his cabin. She stalked off to her own cabin. Maybe she could stay there for the whole journey, and her unasked-for passengers wouldn’t notice.

* * *

Dash rubbed the back of his head and stared at the hatch that McCall had slammed shut as she stalked out. He hadn’t meant to upset her; he’d been trying to tease out whatever secrets she kept hidden. Admittedly, he hadn’t been the smoothest interrogator. She wasn’t what he had expected.

Not that he’d spent a lot of time contemplating what kind of person McCall Richter, skip tracer extraordinaire, would be, but judging by the fees she was able to charge and how many people sought out her services, he’d imagined someone in slinky, expensive clothing with a face that the finest plastic surgeons had sculpted into the epitome of human perfection. He’d also expected her to have a contingent of bodyguards and a crew at her beck and call, delivering dainties on a silver tray while she lounged in bed, alternating poking through files and reading the latest romance novel.

Instead, she was… He wasn’t sure what. He’d mostly felt that she had been uncomfortable from the moment he walked in and that she’d truly struggled to tell if he was joking or not. He’d realized when they shook hands, and the physical contact made her feelings even easier to read, that she’d inwardly recoiled from the touch and hadn’t wanted it to last. As if he were some leper.

He wasn’t used to having women feel that way toward him. Granted, he wasn’t as handsome as some vid actor, and a few of the thugs he’d arrested had left scars for him to remember them by, but he didn’t usually repulse the opposite sex. When he wore a tight short-sleeve shirt at bars on space station layovers, he often drew admiring gazes from women. Of course, he always had to be careful not to let them find out what he was—however weak his mental abilities were compared to those of his mother and so many of their people. Mundane people were terrified of Starseers. Nobody had forgotten that they had tried to take control of the system centuries earlier, even though their numbers were now so small and they lived—were forced to live—in hidden enclaves.

The earstar comm unit hooked over his helix beeped and Dash tapped it. “Yes, sir?”

“You got control of the ship yet?” Axton demanded.

“I’m in NavCom now.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Dash sighed. “The captain said I could familiarize myself with the controls, and then she left.”

Axton grunted. “Make sure she can’t cause any trouble. If the Alliance magically figures out we’ve moved the prisoners over here, we may need to take control of the ship and go into battle with them.”

Dash frowned at the emphasis on that word. Magically. Had it been sarcasm? Or something else? He couldn’t read people’s emotions over a comm link, but Axton was on the ship somewhere, well within Dash’s range to poke into minds. But again, he hesitated, afraid the cyborg would sense him. Dash didn’t need his Starseer background being discovered any more than he needed his link to the Alliance being sussed out.

“I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

“Good. Axton out.”

Dash looked around the NavCom cabin, considering again how it might take some of the pressure off him if he gave Axton another focus for his suspicions. Would McCall have left any damning evidence out in files that weren’t passcode or retina-scan protected? He’d already checked that so-called storage cabin, but the hatch was locked.

He could find some tools and force his way in, but that would leave evidence of his passing. Technically, he could force his way into McCall’s thoughts, too, but the idea repulsed him. Using telepathy to invade and manipulate minds was one of the reasons mundane people feared and hated Starseers.

Dash slid into the pilot’s seat and ran his fingers over the control panel, admiring the massive holographic display that showed the space all around the ship. He tapped a spot in midair, and the image zoomed in to a comet sailing past in the distance. The display magnified it with breathtaking detail.

McCall’s clothing might not be sleek and expensive, but her ship was. He would love a chance to take it through battle maneuvers before they reached Frost Moon 3.

No, he thought, sitting back. He didn’t want that, for it would mean the Alliance was attacking again, trying to rescue Rose Akerele. He would be obligated to pilot the ship with ineptitude and, once again, risk Axton noticing. Better if the Alliance simply stayed away. Dash would find a way to help the prisoners escape on his own. Ideally, by diverting Axton with something else.

“Like you, Captain McCall,” he murmured, hunting around NavCom for clues.

It, like most of the ship he’d seen so far, was sparsely decorated, more like a military craft than someone’s private vessel. Usually, private ships were full of fuzzy asteroids hanging over the pilot’s station and other kitschy souvenirs from space stations and tourist areas. One expected dust lining the nooks and crannies, rubbish wrappers tucked away in bins, and sticky round cup marks staining the control panel. But this ship looked like it had just come out of the factory.

His roving gaze stopped on the only decoration in NavCom, a framed quotation. It hung at head height near the hatchway.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

It was attributed to an Old Earth philosopher from more than fifteen hundred years in the past.

“Unfree empire,” Dash muttered, “not world.”

All of the planets and moons in the system fell under the empire’s rule, and even out on the less-regulated border worlds, there weren’t many places to be truly free. The closest one could come was to have a ship and be able to sail among the planets as one wished, but even then, the empire expected its draconian taxes to be paid each year.

“Not for long,” he murmured to himself, thinking of the changes the Alliance wanted to make once it overthrew the empire.

Too bad that was such a Herculean task and their forces were so small. Still, more and more people joined the movement each day. And he’d heard the time was nearing for a big push. Maybe all-out war.

Dash left NavCom, confident he could fly any ship without spending a large amount of time studying it, to look around the rest of the vessel, hoping for more clues as to what McCall kept in that locked cabin.

The corridor was empty, and he paused to put his ear to the hatch.

“Talk about a low-tech surveillance method,” he murmured.

He didn’t hear a thing. He rested his fingertips on the hatch and closed his eyes, stretching out with his mind as his mother had taught him to do as a boy. Though he wasn’t as talented as people with two Starseer parents, he could sense if there was life on the other side of a wall or bulkhead. There wasn’t. He hadn’t truly expected it since, as he’d told Axton, he had scanned the ship with their sensors before they had come aboard. Whatever McCall kept inside was likely some physical item or items. Stolen goods? Condemning evidence? Top secret plans to some imperial base?

He snorted. If she had those, he would have to recruit her to join the Alliance.

Her cabin was the one across from the locked one. Was she in there? Her personal place might be a fount of evidence. Ah, but he sensed her inside. The dog was in there, too, looking toward the hatch, perhaps hearing him in the corridor.

Dash drew back immediately, not wanting McCall to feel his telepathic touch. He had no reason to suspect she would be sensitive to such things, but some people were. Some people had Starseer genes that had never been turned on. They weren’t able to perform telepathy or telekinesis, but they tended to be more sensitive than other mundane people.

He moved to the next hatch and tried it. He and Axton had claimed two empty cabins at the end of the corridor for themselves, but he hadn’t seen what was in the middle ones yet.

The hatch wasn’t locked, and he poked his head into an exercise area with mats on the floor, two treadmills, and several pieces of weight-lifting equipment. Why would she need two treadmills if she was the only one on the ship? He stepped closer, thinking of the possibility of criminals hidden away in cabins shielded from sensors, but then he saw the gouge marks and dusty paw prints on the belt of one of the machines.

“A dog treadmill?” Dash supposed canines needed exercise the same as humans when cooped up on a small ship for long periods of time.

The next cabin Dash checked held bins of books and art supplies. Numerous painted canvases leaned against a wall, and another rested on an easel, a painting of the distinctive blue Ellipsoid Nebula partially completed. The dry paintings on the deck were a mix of space-scapes and landscapes, all done in an impressively accurate and realistic style. He paused, drawn to one of a misty ocean and a cliff-filled shoreline with dark rock formations rising up from the waves. It reminded him of Arkadius and the temple, a home he hadn’t seen in almost twenty years.

A home he’d voluntarily left because he hadn’t fit in, he reminded himself, pushing down feelings of nostalgia. It was mostly his mother and grandmother that he missed, not the rest of the community or the way he’d always been treated—like something lesser because he lacked the impressive powers of other Starseers.

Dash backed out of the cabin. The paintings were good, and he wondered why she didn’t hang any of the finished pieces around the ship, but they weren’t clues to nefarious crimes she might have committed.

The next cabin looked to be more promising. It was her office, a desk with a comfortable mesh chair and a dedicated computer terminal. A porthole looked out onto the stars. He didn’t see a filing cabinet or much in the way of physical paper or note boards, so she wasn’t one of those people who thought best in the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. He did spot a single paper stuck to the wall next to the desk. Suspecting another quotation, he stepped in for a closer look.

But it was a list. The heading read: What motivates people. The list included such things as need for companionship, desire to avoid pain, desire to obtain pleasure, desire for recognition, and money and rewards.

They seemed like obvious things to him, but for some reason, he could imagine McCall glancing at the list as she followed leads on the sys-net. Needing the reminder.

Dash stepped out of the office, closing the hatch behind him. He’d run out of cabins to check. He could investigate the cargo hold and engineering, but then he risked running into Axton, who was on that end of the ship, glowering at the prisoners and making sure they didn’t escape.

Besides, Dash suspected the answers were up here. He let his gaze drift toward that locked hatch again. Some Starseers could use telekinesis to move matter and unlock doors. He didn’t have that knack, alas. It would have been handy.

He walked to the hatch again, resting his fingers on it and considering the lock and what kind of tool he would need to break it. And also whether he had the right to do so.

“What are you doing, Dashmukh?” came Axton’s snarl from the end of the corridor.

Dash jumped. He hadn’t heard or sensed the cyborg’s approach.

“Just looking around the ship,” he said carefully, not correcting his boss’s pronunciation of his surname. It was typical. There was a reason he’d ended up with the nickname Dash.

He thought about mentioning the locked hatch, since Axton could tear it open with his bare hands, but he had no proof that there was anything in there. It was entirely possible that McCall didn’t want them in the cabin because that was where she kept something embarrassing that she didn’t want strangers rummaging through. Her neon dildos and erotic art, perhaps?

Dash snorted inwardly, having a hard time matching such things to the woman he’d met.

“I told you to learn how to pilot it,” Axton said, stalking closer, “not take a tour of it.”

“Yes, sir. But I thought—”

“Nobody’s paying you to think. You’re the pilot, and that’s it. Got it?” Axton stopped in front of him.

Dash hated how the man towered over him, even without his combat armor, but he lifted his chin and met Axton’s gaze, refusing to simper. To his surprise, one of Axton’s eyes was swelling shut. Had he removed his helmet at some point during the prisoner transfer, giving one of them an opportunity to land a punch? Dash wished he’d been there to see it. Maybe it had been the Alliance man in there with Rose. Or maybe it had been Rose. Probably not, since she was in her sixties and looked like the professor she had been in her past life, not some Amazon warrior woman from Old Earth.

“I’ve got it,” Dash said.

“Sir.”

“Sir,” Dash spat out.

“You’re an insubordinate little git, Dash. Couldn’t have made it in the army. I’m surprised the enforcers let you in. I looked you up, and I know what you are.”

Dash’s breath caught. Had Axton figured out his allegiance to the Alliance?

“You used to be a bounty hunter, the rogue bastards. Skirting the law and doing whatever it takes to bring people in, dead or alive. I know your kind. You’ve got no respect for anyone or anything except making money. For ten tindarks, you’d turn me over to the black marketeers collecting cyborg implants. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

“That’s long in the past, sir,” Dash said. “I joined the law enforcers because I didn’t want to be a rogue. I wanted to help people.” Specifically, he’d wanted to be in a position to help the Alliance. “Legally.”

“I bet. I don’t know why I got stuck with you, but if you so much as piss wrong, I’ll pound you into the deck and report you to HQ for insubordination.”

“Insubordinate… pissing?” Dash couldn’t help himself.

Faster than lightning, Axton’s fist came out and tangled in Dash’s shirt. He lifted Dash to his toes and then clear off them until he dangled in the air.

Dash balled his fists. He was so tempted to punch the bastard, but if he lost this job—or ended up in prison somewhere for striking a superior officer—he would be no good to the Alliance. Or anyone. Besides, as competent a fighter as he was under most circumstances, this wasn’t a normal man he faced. He had little doubt Axton had the strength and speed to beat him.

He did his best to remain calm and keep his chin up while ignoring how hard it was to breathe with someone lifting him by the front of his shirt.

“Watch your tongue, or I’ll blazer it out,” Axton growled, then dropped him. “Now, get in that pilot’s seat and learn to fly this ship.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Dash turned to obey, he spotted a hatch open a few inches. The one to McCall’s cabin. And she was looking out—suns’ wrath, had she seen all of that?

The fire of embarrassment burned Dash’s cheeks as he strode into NavCom as quickly as he could. Thankfully, Axton didn’t follow. A soft click sounded. McCall’s hatch shutting?

He told himself it didn’t matter if she’d seen him humiliated, that he wouldn’t see her again after their little voyage. But that didn’t make him feel any less emasculated.

She didn’t know that he was working undercover and had a lot to protect. She didn’t know that he would normally put a blazer bolt through the head of someone who bullied him like that. She didn’t even know who he had been as a bounty hunter. True, he hadn’t been anywhere near as famous—or infamous—as she, but they’d been in similar industries, so he’d thought she might have come across his name before.

Not that it mattered. All that mattered was figuring out a way to free the prisoners before they were stuck in the mines of Frost Moon 3. People didn’t get out of that prison, and it was rumored to be a quick death for most. And the Alliance needed Rose Akerele. So did he, or all this humiliation was for nothing.

He vowed to find a way into that locked cabin soon so he could get Axton thinking about something else.

3

McCall sat cross-legged on her bed and drummed her fingers on her thighs as she studied all the holo images floating in the air around her.

One showed the camera display of her single-cell brig where the sheriff had crammed his six prisoners—there wasn’t room for them to lie down. Most were sitting with their knees pulled up to their chests and their heads resting on their crossed arms. They looked miserable. And from what McCall had been able to discern, using facial-recognition software and the judicial databases to which she subscribed, none of them had committed crimes heinous enough to deserve sentences of life in the mines. At least in her opinion. Two were thieves, two ran with gangs on Cleon Moon, and two were known affiliates of the Alliance, including an older dark-skinned woman with wiry gray hair who was a higher-up in the organization. That seemed to be her only crime. She’d been a respected professor on Perun, with three advanced degrees, before walking away from it all to join the Alliance.

“So, why did you all earn one-way trips to the Frost Moon 3 coal mines?” she murmured to herself.

Usually, the empire adjusted, as they called it, the minds of lesser criminals and also of Alliance loyalists so they could be reintegrated into society. Throwing them to the pack ghorettins seemed strange.

Was it possible Axton had been acting on his own? Capturing people and dropping them off without due process? If so, to what end?

McCall supposed it could be worse—they could have been executed—but nothing she’d heard about Frost Moon 3 was good. Prisoners sent there were forced to work in the mines and plants beneath the world’s icy surface to provide heat and energy for the hardy colonists who lived in domes up above. Escape was reputed to be close to impossible since the mines and factories were over a hundred miles from any of the domes or the planet’s single space port. Those who did slip out tended to freeze to death on the surface before they made it far.

McCall switched to the other two files she’d pulled up, those of the law enforcers who’d taken over her ship. Scipio had verified they weren’t criminals masquerading as government employees, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything shifty about them.

Axton had been an athlete and a good student in school, even a Xerikesh boy at his local Divine Suns Trinity Church, before joining the military. Strange that he’d turned into an unbalanced ass, at least from what she’d witnessed. Axton had been selected early on for the cyborg surgeries and had served in the fleet’s elite Cyborg Corps for almost ten years before being, according to his record, discharged without bias.

McCall hadn’t seen that before and wasn’t sure how to interpret it. It wasn’t a dishonorable discharge, but it also wasn’t an honorable one. He’d been working as sheriff out among the border worlds for the last two years and didn’t have any demerits on his record that she’d been able to dig up. Law-enforcer records weren’t available to the public, but she knew a few back doors into their databases, so she should have been able to find out if he’d been reported by civilians or colleagues. But who would report him out on the border planets? Few people out there wanted anything to do with the empire, so they handled matters with their own hands instead of complaining to the law.

McCall typed up a quick note to an AWOL cyborg she had met a few months earlier. Sebastian Sears. She’d helped him avoid notice of the authorities and showed him how to survive off the grid, so he probably wouldn’t mind assisting her if it wouldn’t endanger him. All she wanted to know was if someone who’d been inside the Cyborg Corps knew anything about Axton.

Deshmukh was something of a mystery too. Oh, she’d found his name easily enough—Arjun “Dash” Deshmukh—and record of his years as a bounty hunter. But for some reason, he had enrolled in the law-enforcer academy for a career change less than a year ago. He was a mere assistant deputy, not even a deputy, though he also held the designation of pilot. The career change seemed an odd choice for someone who was in his late thirties, or so his record said. There was nothing about him, not where he’d grown up or where he’d gone to school, until almost twenty years ago when he’d enrolled in the civilian flight academy on Arkadius. He’d graduated and flown freight for a couple of years before becoming a bounty hunter.

“Who goes from being a bounty hunter to a law enforcer? From having no rules whatsoever and working independently to having to deal with a chain of command as strict as that of the imperial space fleet?”

A squeak answered her, and she jumped.

Junkyard was on his feet, his forelegs and head lowered in an invitation to play. A stuffed bramisar dangled from his lips.

McCall sighed, swiped her fingers through the displays to close them, and scooted off the bed to play tug-o-war with him. “Sorry, buddy. I know how you feel. I need exercise too.”

Her back and neck ached from doing research from her bed instead of the ergonomic chair in her office, and she wanted to hop on her treadmill for a run. She usually did that first thing in the morning, but she’d been staying in her cabin since her unasked-for visitors had arrived. Aside from quick outings to escort Junkyard to the waste area where he took care of biological needs, she hadn’t felt like going to her office or the exercise room, not when she might run into the two intruders in the corridor.

She craved her usual routine and resented the interruption to it. Early-morning exercise with Junkyard, followed by breakfast, followed by a day of work, followed by an evening meal with Scipio. He did not dine, but he kept her company, and they discussed business. Then she did her stretches and read, painted, or played holo games. That was how her days went. That was how she liked them to go. When there were changes, she grew frustrated, and being cooped up in her cabin made her especially antsy. Clearly, Junkyard was antsy too. He wasn’t a young pup with crazy amounts of energy, but he was an adult dog in the prime of his life. He had needs.

“We both do,” McCall muttered, tugging back when Junkyard sank his weight into his back haunches.

He was big enough to pull her off her feet if he wanted, but he usually didn’t. He could have fun by exerting enough effort to keep the game going but not so much that either of them ended up losers.

“If I could trust you not to bite that cyborg in the balls, I’d let you out to run around the ship.” She wouldn’t actually feel bad if Junkyard bit Axton in the balls, but she was positive the sheriff had been ready to shoot to kill in the cargo hold the first day. Her heart had been in her throat, and it had taken everything she had not to freak out and try to shoot him first. Not that a stun gun would have done anything against someone in full combat armor.

Junkyard released the toy, trotted to the hatch, and looked expectantly over his shoulder.

Though McCall couldn’t blame the dog for his needs, she grimaced, still not wanting to run into her visitors. She felt a little guilty that she’d left them to fend for themselves in regard to where things were and what food they could eat, but her brief interactions with Axton had left her convinced he was best avoided. While Dash wasn’t as overbearing, and she had empathized with him when his boss had been chewing him out in the corridor, his probing gaze was disconcerting, and she couldn’t help but feel he was trying to discover all her secrets.

Her stomach growled, reminding her again of her interrupted routine.

“All right,” she said. “We venture out.”

Junkyard wagged his tail so that it thwacked resoundingly against the closest bulkhead.

McCall opened the hatch, hoping to find the corridor empty, only to see two people standing right outside with their backs to her. They turned to look at her, and she had a view across the way into the open hatchway of Scipio’s room.

Her stomach plummeted into her shoes. That hatch had been locked. She had done it herself.

“What’s going on?” McCall meant her voice to sound authoritative and indignant, but the words came out squeaky and terrified.

Junkyard snarled, and she jumped. Axton’s eyebrows crashed together as he scowled at the dog. He’d removed his combat armor and wore only his uniform with a stun gun, but that didn’t make him any less intimidating. A cyborg would have the strength to break a dog’s spine with his bare hands.

Worried anew for Junkyard, McCall used her hip to block him from getting out, then closed the hatch with a silent apology and promise that she would take him out later. If these two didn’t throw her in her own brig. What were they doing? Had they found Scipio?

“An investigation,” Axton said flatly.

She looked past Dash to the control pad next to the door. A palm print should have been required to unlock it, but someone had taken off the panel and fiddled with the circuitry inside.

“You broke the lock?” she demanded. “Why? You could have asked me to open it. Who’s going to repair that?”

Dash had the decency to look abashed. Axton only maintained his scowl and thrust a finger through the hatchway to the built-in bunk, desk, and hand-carved wooden armoire that Scipio had found at some dockside sale. McCall didn’t see him in the cabin. Where had he deactivated himself? In his closet?

“You said this was a storage area,” Axton said, “but this is someone’s cabin.”

“Yes, with someone’s belongings stored in it,” McCall said. A true statement.

Dash frowned slightly, peering at her face in that disconcerting way again.

Axton stalked into the cabin and began rummaging around. Roughly.

McCall clenched her fists. If the bastard broke any of those ceramic eggs that Scipio collected, she would… she didn’t know what. She had occasionally fantasized about hiring hitmen to nail the truly odious people she encountered—especially since she’d gotten to the point where she could actually afford their services—but she would never truly do something she considered amoral. Her mother had raised her to be a good law-abiding person, and if there was such a thing as an afterlife, she would frown with vehement disapproval if McCall or her sister ever did anything criminal. Admittedly, taking Scipio from his previous owners hadn’t been legal, but McCall wasn’t convinced it had been wrong.

“Are you harboring a criminal?” Dash asked her quietly.

“Am I harboring a criminal?” McCall kept herself from pouring incredulity into her voice and overacting—she’d been told she was horrible at acting. She realized she was fiddling with her bracelet and jerked her hands down to her sides. “Of course not. You scanned my ship, didn’t you? I’m the only one here. Me and Junkyard.”

Dash’s eyes narrowed. Damn, she was even worse at telling half-truths than she remembered. Either that, or he was oddly perceptive for a bounty hunter.

Axton waved a hand over the sensor for the closet, and McCall winced, certain he’d find—

“Awk,” Axton blurted, jumping back and reaching for his holster.

McCall hadn’t grabbed her stun gun out of her cabin, so she couldn’t shoot him in the back if he fired. Too bad. He wasn’t in his combat armor now. He ought to be vulnerable.

Dash’s eyes narrowed farther.

“What is that?” Axton lowered his hand without drawing his weapon. “An android?”

McCall shrugged. “Yes. It’s his room.”

“Why is he in the closet?” Axton threw Dash a look that even McCall didn’t have trouble reading. He thought the situation was weird and that she was too.

Better to be thought weird than a thief.

“I deactivated him,” McCall said, able to see from the corridor that Scipio was standing utterly still and tilted back slightly, his head and shoulders against the back wall of the closet. His eyes were closed. “He’s been malfunctioning, and I need to take him to see a tech when I get a chance.”

It sounded reasonable to her, and Scipio obliged by keeping his eyes shut. She knew his state of inactivity was more akin to sleep than some true deactivation from which he couldn’t rouse himself, but maybe these two wouldn’t know the difference.

“Why did you have him locked in here?” Dash asked.

“So nobody would break any of his stuff.” She waved at the glass display case that held Scipio’s egg collection and then toward an overflowing hat rack in the corner of the cabin. The closet was so full of his suits that she was amazed Axton had even spotted him in there among them. “Your boss looks like an ox,” she added.

Dash snorted.

Axton glowered back at both of them. “You got your netdisc, Dash?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come scan this android’s serial number.”

McCall grew utterly still. They suspected. It hadn’t even been two full days, and they already suspected she was up to something. What would they do when they found out? Take Scipio back to that awful factory where he’d been that woman’s sex slave and ordered to fetch this and that for her pleasure? Like he was some mindless automaton and not a sentient being with an AI as sophisticated as any out there?

“Yes, sir.” Dash frowned at McCall and walked into the cabin.

She lamented having left her stun gun by her bed. Could she run over and get it in time? Even if she could, what would she do? Stun them both, drag them into one of the life pods and eject it into space?

If she took an action like that, she would be considered a criminal, and the law enforcers would come after her. They would take her ship away permanently, if they didn’t kill her outright. To avoid that fate, she would have to spend the rest of her days in hiding, and she would lose all her freedom, everything she’d worked toward her whole life.

But could she stand back and do nothing as they took her friend away?

“Got it?” Axton asked.

Dash stepped back from the closet, a netdisc in hand. “Yes, sir. Do you want me to send it back to Headquarters to see if it matches anything in their files?”

“Give it to me. I’ll do it.” Axton took the netdisc from Dash’s hands.

Dash squinted at him but did not object.

“Is there a problem?” Scipio asked, his eyes opening.

Both men jumped.

McCall rubbed her face. She didn’t know if things would get better or worse if Scipio spoke. Had his awareness been switched on earlier so he knew what was going on? Or would he inadvertently countermand what she’d said?

“Scipio,” McCall said, not worrying about using that name, since he’d given it to himself after they started working together, and it wasn’t in a record anywhere. His serial number, however, was a different matter. “I commanded you to power down. You haven’t been yourself, remember? I was going to have you looked at on Sherran Moon.”

“Have we not yet reached Sherran Moon?” Scipio looked from Dash to Axton as he stepped slowly out of the closet. “Is there a problem, Captain?” He looked across the cabin at her.

McCall knew he would attack if she ordered it, and she knew he had strength to equal that of a cyborg, but he was a personal assistant model, not a combat specialist, despite his choice to name himself after an Ancient Earth general. She couldn’t assume he would best Axton in a fight. And then there was Dash to deal with. She was even less a combat specialist than Scipio, and since she’d walked out without her stun gun…

Axton bunched his shoulders and curled his fingers into fists, scowling at McCall when she didn’t answer.

“No problem,” McCall told Scipio. “Law enforcers are temporarily borrowing our ship.”

Scipio knew all this, of course, and she wasn’t sure what they might gain from a ruse, but playing stupid seemed a better bet than laying all her cards on the table.

“Do they require the use of my cabin?” Scipio asked.

“No, I’m not sure why they’re in here. They broke the lock instead of asking me to open the door.”

“I believe human social conventions would classify that as rude.”

“No doubt.”

“Shut up.” Axton made a chopping motion with his hand. “You, skip tracer. Want to tell me now if this android is stolen property? Before I send my report back to HQ and find out for myself?”

“Why would you think my android is stolen?” McCall said. “Surely, you looked me up. I make good money. I own this ship. I have no need to pilfer computer equipment.”

“Computer equipment?” Scipio asked. “I am far superior to simple computer equipment, Captain.”

“Because my pilot thinks you’re up to something duplicitous,” Axton said, ignoring Scipio’s interjection.

McCall grimaced at Dash. She didn’t know why he was after her, but she realized she’d been right earlier, that he had been trying to wheedle information out of her.

He looked away from her.

“Is the android stolen?” Axton repeated.

McCall took a breath and forced herself to meet the big man’s eyes. “No.”

She counted to five before looking away, though she found it extremely unpleasant to hold that intimacy with him, especially when he was glowering the whole time.

“Where did you buy it?” Axton asked, not appearing impressed by her eye contact.

“I did not buy him. He applied for a job with me, and I hired him.”

Axton’s brow furrowed.

“He proved very adept at administration tasks, and he’s far better at interfacing with clients than I am,” McCall added, “so I eventually made him my business partner.”

Dash looked back at her, but she couldn’t easily read his expression. He wasn’t scowling like Axton. He seemed puzzled.

Was that better than suspicious? McCall wished she knew.

“Someone had to buy him,” Axton said. “Androids are made for people to buy. They’re things. They aren’t created—at great expense, I understand—and then told to go out into the world and find work for themselves.”

McCall kept herself from pointing out that cyborgs were also made but that they still had rights. She shrugged and said, “I didn’t ask him for his life’s story. He offered to do my paperwork and answer the comms. What more could a small business owner ask for?”

Axton turned his scowl on Scipio. “Who is your owner? Your rightful owner?”

McCall tensed. She had never asked Scipio to lie on her behalf—or his—and she didn’t know if his programming would allow it.

“I was originally purchased for use in a computer systems factory owned by a wealthy businesswoman with a government contract, but I was deemed surplus and no longer needed for the work there.”

McCall kept from snorting. She had been the one to deem him surplus, not his previous owner. That factory created communications security systems for the space fleet, and Scipio knew the hardware and software forward and back. Since those systems were now in use by the military, the empire wouldn’t want him running loose if they knew he’d escaped rather than being destroyed, as McCall believed the woman had reported.

Axton tapped notes into Dash’s netdisc. “We’ll check on this.”

He stalked for the exit and would have mowed McCall over if she hadn’t jumped to the side.

Dash walked out more slowly, pausing in the hatchway as if he wanted to say something to her. She willed him to go away. She didn’t want anything to do with either of them.

“Dash,” Axton barked from down the corridor.

Dash sighed and followed his boss without a word.

McCall stepped into the cabin and closed the hatch behind her.

“They scanned my serial number,” Scipio said quietly.

“I know.”

“I did not know if I should stop them or not.”

“I’m not sure you could. The big one is a cyborg. The other man is… I don’t know what he is.”

“His uniform identifies him as a pilot and a law-enforcement assistant deputy.”

“Right,” McCall said. “All right, let’s not panic yet.”

“I am not capable of panicking.”

“I am.”

“Ah, yes. Understood.”

“We’re hours out from real-time communication with the core worlds, and the Law Enforcement Headquarters are on Perun, which is on the far side of its orbit around Novus Solis from us right now, so he won’t likely get a report back until tomorrow or the day after. Unfortunately, we have three more days of travel with them before we get to Frost Moon 3.”

“His personal communications device would need to boost through our dish to reach the core worlds from here,” Scipio said. “It may be possible to jam his transmission before he sends it.”

“Do you know how to do that?”

“Of course.” Scipio tilted his head toward the hatch. “I would need to be in NavCom and have access to all the communications equipment.”

McCall stepped aside. “Go ahead. He’ll know he’s being jammed, right?”

“He will know there is a problem getting the signal out. It is possible he will believe it an error rather than sabotage.”

Somehow, McCall doubted Axton was the type to believe there was an innocent reason for something when it would be possible to interpret it as a malicious reason. “Do your best to make it seem like an error then. In the meantime, I’ll dig more into his record. There’s something fishy about a former fleet cyborg running around as a sheriff in the hind end of space.”

“I trust you will find the reason.” Scipio disappeared, heading to NavCom.

McCall believed she would, too, but what she didn’t believe was that it would make a difference. Law Enforcement Headquarters had likely known about his past when they’d hired him, and she feared they would be far more likely to focus on the serial number of a certain stolen—liberated—android instead.

4

Dash couldn’t sleep so he followed the ship’s dim night lighting into one of the short side corridors that led to a kitchen and mess area. He’d been lying on his bunk, dwelling on the choices he’d made that day—and not liking them.

The light was on in the mess area, so he hesitated before entering. Despite the late hour, he sensed McCall in there.

He knew she wouldn’t want to see him, but he felt the urge to apologize to her. When she’d walked in on them rooting through her android’s cabin, he wasn’t sure what he had expected from her. Indignation or self-righteous defense? Fear of being caught doing something illegal? There had been a hint of that, and he’d glimpsed an image in her thoughts of her and the android running away from a huge secure facility together, but mostly, she had been distressed about potentially losing someone she considered a friend.

When she’d made that statement about the android being her business partner, Dash had been skeptical, so he’d pried deeper into her thoughts than he usually would, and he’d sensed she was being honest about that. And that she genuinely cared about the android. Scipio, she’d called him. A name instead of a nomenclature. Already, he was beginning to wonder if he’d done the wrong thing. All he’d wanted was to divert Axton’s attention from himself, and he’d truly believed McCall had been hiding something criminal…

But as someone now working with the Alliance, he would be considered criminal in the empire’s eyes. He felt like a hypocrite for getting her in trouble.

A ding sounded, and the smell of food—some kind of sausage?—wafted into the corridor. Dash’s stomach growled. He’d been living off the awful ration bars Axton had brought over when they had abandoned their ship. Even the prisoners groaned whenever Dash delivered some to their cell.

A dish clanked onto a counter or table, and Dash decided to risk McCall’s ire to see if she would offer him some food. Axton, he knew, had taken some of her food, probably without asking, and had been swilling a bottle of wine earlier in the evening. Dash didn’t think their rights as law enforcers extended as far as pilfering someone’s food.

He cleared his throat so she would have warning and walked into the compact mess area.

He caught her closing a netdisc, the holodisplay winking out. He sensed Axton’s face in her thoughts—had she been researching him?—before drawing his awareness back and vowing to stay out of her mind. He’d already intruded enough.

“Sorry,” he said when she looked at him with wariness from where she sat at the table, facing the door. Sausage links and a variety of minced vegetables rested on a plate in front of her, alongside a can of carbonated water and some kind of bar in a wrapper. It looked more like a dessert than the dreadful ration bars from the Truncheon 4. “I thought everyone was sleeping. I just wanted to…”

His gaze snagged on three empty wine bottles sitting above a wine refrigeration unit. Had Axton chugged all of those? Dash hadn’t. McCall was drinking water, so she likely hadn’t.

She followed his gaze, and her lips pressed together. But all she did was stand, grab her plate, and say, “I’ll go to my cabin. Help yourself to whatever. Though if you’re a drinker of wine, I suggest the Bergonian Table Red over the other choices.”

Damn, he didn’t want to drive her to her room. “Because it’s the best?”

“Because it’s easy to acquire on a lot of planets. With some of the kinds I have, you have to visit the family’s centuries-old winery in person because they don’t ship off world.” She glanced at the empty bottles again.

Dash sighed, suspecting Axton had simply taken whatever had an appealing-looking label. Or a high alcohol content. Most cyborgs Dash knew didn’t take drugs or drink because of the unpredictable way it affected their altered systems, but Axton probably didn’t care if booze turned him into an unstable ass. Who would know the difference?

“Wait.” Dash lifted a hand as McCall headed for the exit. “You don’t have to go. It’s your ship. I’ll go.”

She stopped and stared at him. Actually, she stared at his chin. Even though he wasn’t trying to read her, he had that sense again that he made her extremely uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, though he wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for leading Axton to her android or for being someone she considered an enemy.

She lifted a shoulder.

He tried to think of a way to get her to stay so he could more properly apologize to her, though he didn’t know how he would manage without admitting he knew more than a normal person should about her situation. While he’d found his telepathic abilities useful many times in his life, there were other times when he was keenly aware that they made him something not entirely human. He hadn’t fit in with the more powerful Starseers in the temple when he’d been growing up, and he had never fit in with the human population as a whole either. It didn’t help that he’d always had to hide what he was when among them.

“If you have any more of that sausage and wouldn’t mind giving me a couple of pieces…” Dash stretched out with his senses before offering what Axton would probably consider a betrayal, if not treason of a sort. The cyborg was sleeping in the corridor outside the cell, ensuring that anyone who went to see the prisoners would have to step over him. “I’ll tell you everything I know about Axton,” Dash finished quietly.

“What makes you think I want to know?” She squinted suspiciously, but once again, she didn’t look into his eyes. Her focus was in his general direction but not toward his face.

“I saw you were looking him up before you closed your netdisc.” Technically, he’d seen in her mind that she’d been looking him up.

“I had the holodisplay in privacy mode. There’s no way you could have seen anything from the hatchway.”

He thought about claiming she was wrong but reminded himself she was smart. As good at her job as she was, she had to be.

“Are you interested in him or not? Because if my stomach starts growling any louder, you won’t be able to hear me talk.”

“I don’t need your help researching anyone,” she said and started for the hatch again, “but you can take whatever you want to eat.”

Disappointed that he was driving her away, however inadvertently, Dash almost put his hand out to stop her, but she wouldn’t appreciate that, and it would only make her feel more uncomfortable.

He stepped aside but noticed she’d forgotten her bar. “Wait.” He went over and plucked it off the table so he could hand it to her. “Tammy Jammy’s Peanut Butter and Jammy Jam?”

It looked like something a kid would eat, and for some reason, it amused him that the great skip tracer, finder of all criminals and deadbeats great and small, enjoyed kids’ treats.

“Yes, so?” She rearranged her plate and canned water so she could take it.

“Is it good?”

“You’ve never had a Tammy Jammy bar?” she asked in disbelief.

“I haven’t. Has my palate been dearly deprived of a culinary delight?”

She snorted. “I like them, but it’s just that everybody’s had them. They run those commercials on the sys-net all the time, and there are distributors on all the planets, even out in the border worlds. Every kid seems to get them in their lunches. Where did you grow up?” Her brow was furrowed in genuine confusion.

“Not near a distributor, I guess.” Dash wasn’t about to mention that the Starseer temple hadn’t been plugged into the empire’s propaganda-driven sys-net, as his teachers had called it when he’d been growing up. “Can I try a piece?” he asked, more because this line of conversation had kept her from leaving than because he ached to sample it.

She hesitated. “It’s kind of a dessert.”

“So it’s illegal to try it before dinner?”

“Not illegal. But I eat it at the end.”

“You never eat out of order?”

“No.”

She took a step back, and he sensed he’d misstepped with her again, that she had taken his attempt at lighthearted banter as teasing. She was sensitive about… He let himself brush her mind with his, though there was a risk she would sense it, especially now, without anything else going on to distract her.

She thought he thought she was weird. No, she thought she was weird and it bothered her when other people noticed. She’d gotten used to not having to try to fit in anymore—it wasn’t as if the android or her dog cared—but having people here invading her space made her aware of things she preferred to forget.

“I guess that’s the proper way to go about dining,” Dash said, “but I’m a notorious rule breaker.”

“So naturally, you became a law enforcer.”

“Odd, isn’t it?” He doubted it was in his power to change how she felt about herself, but maybe if he shared that he also wasn’t exactly normal, it would help him build a rapport with her.

“If you want to try one, there are more bars in the drawer over there.” She pointed, not commenting on his oddness. “And there are some peanut butter and chocolate balls, too, if you prefer something with sugar. Just don’t take them all. They’re my treat to myself after finishing a job.” Her mouth twisted and she gave him an exasperated look, though once again, she didn’t meet his eyes. “Or for when I have to deal with stressful situations.”

“Tammy Jammy bars don’t have sugar?” He decided it would be safer to keep the conversation on them rather than on how stress-promoting he was.

“Just what’s naturally in the fruit the jam is made from. That’s the selling point to mothers of kids.”

“And to skip tracers?”

“They’re free of grains, neo-grains, dairy, sugar, and artificial sweeteners.”

“I see. You’re one of those health—” He reminded himself that he didn’t want to highlight that she was… eccentric, he decided to think of her as, not weird. “Health-conscious individuals.”

She gave him another exasperated look, and he could tell she wasn’t fooled by his mid-sentence adjustment. “My brain works better when I avoid that stuff, all right? Take whatever you want.”

She walked out, and this time, he couldn’t think of anything to say to keep her there. He wasn’t sure why that saddened him.

Because he hadn’t really apologized yet, he decided.

* * *

On the third day, a message came in from McCall’s cyborg friend, Sebastian. Technically, it came from “Third Bear from the Right,” but she knew that was the name he used out on the sys-net. He’d responded in text and relayed it through routers on several planets and space stations so it would be untraceable. She smiled, proud to see him using the skills she’d taught him.

“Ma’am,” she said, reading his response out loud to Junkyard, who was moping around with a toy between his paws while looking extremely bored at being shut in their cabin. “I’m glad you have survived your run-in with an odious cyborg. I can assure you that we un-odious cyborgs are special souls and to be treasured.”

She glanced at Junkyard to see what he thought of the humor. He flopped over on his side and issued a dramatic sigh.

“I never met Sergeant Axton personally,” she continued to read, “as he left the unit before I had my surgery and joined up, but I do remember his name being mentioned and some stories being told about how he was prone to fits of rage and killed a fellow cyborg who disobeyed his orders during the heat of battle. There was some question about whether his actions had been justified, but none of his superiors agreed with deadly force as a disciplinary measure.” McCall shook her head. “I’d hope not,” she interjected, then read on. “That’s what got him kicked out, but he’d apparently been written up several times for abuse to civilians and other soldiers outside of the Corps. His superiors had trouble controlling him. The surgeries and hormone injections sometimes cause severe mental changes in men, so that kind of thing isn’t without precedent, you understand, and the fleet isn’t as much help as you would hope. Axton might not be stable. If he’s on your ship, you should get him off. Fast. And stay out of his way. Be careful, ma’am.”

McCall flicked off the holodisplay and lowered her netdisc. “Nothing we couldn’t have guessed, eh, Junk?”

An ear twitched.

Though it was good to know more about Axton, McCall didn’t know how helpful the information was. As she’d considered before, it was likely his superiors at Law Enforcement Headquarters knew all about his past. They must have stuck him out here patrolling the border worlds so he wouldn’t have to interact with that many of his fellow officers. Except his poor pilot.

McCall had witnessed Dash walking on eggshells around Axton. She wondered what he was like when he wasn’t around the sheriff. He had a sense of humor that had come out a few times, but she didn’t know how she felt about it. She liked wit in some contexts, but more in novels and vids than in real life, because then she knew she wasn’t the butt of some joke. That had happened often to her as a kid. She liked to think she was better than her sister at grasping humor, but a lot of it still went over her head.

Actually, since McKenzie had undergone the empire’s “normalization” surgery, she might be better at getting jokes these days. McCall would have to ask her the next time they spoke. Whenever that would be. They hadn’t had a lot in common before, and they had even less in common now.

A knock sounded at her hatch.

For an alarmed moment, she worried it was Dash—or worse, Axton—but her brain caught up to her instincts. She recognized Scipio’s three precise thumps.

“Come in, Scipio,” she called.

He entered, wearing a different one of his exquisitely tailored suits than the day before. Having intruders on the ship and dealing with the possibility of discovery weren’t enough to throw off his dressing routine, it seemed.

“You’re looking sharp today,” she told him since she’d learned how much he liked the acknowledgment.

“Am I? This is excellent news. The majority of my computing energy has gone toward cogitating on my problem, so I selected my attire with less care than usual.”

“Are you still jamming the sheriff’s transmissions?” The last she’d heard, he had successfully kept Axton’s message from leaving the ship.

“Unfortunately, I am not. He came into NavCom last night and accused me of interfering with his transmission. Which I was doing. It was difficult to persuade him that I was not. Especially when his hands were around my throat.”

McCall rose to her feet, a surge of indignation rushing through her. “Are you all right? Why didn’t you comm me?”

“You were in your sleep cycle, and I’ve observed that you function optimally when you sleep for more than seven-point-five hours a night.”

“Scipio.”

He lifted a hand in his familiar placating gesture—he only had one of those programmed in that she’d observed. “I do not feel pain, as you know, nor do I have a windpipe that can be cut off. Though self-repair is difficult, especially when amputation or dismemberment is involved, I was confident that you would assist with putting me back together if he ripped me apart.”

“If that asshole tries to rip you apart, you rip him apart,” she said hotly.

Scipio tilted his head. “I did consider that, but I do not believe I could win. And since he is a law-enforcement officer, my programming would not allow me to attempt real damage to him. I assume you have done more thorough research than I did before they boarded, and verified that he is indeed a law-enforcement officer and not some criminal perpetrating a farce?” If androids could sound hopeful, he did.

Which McCall understood perfectly. If Axton and Dash had been criminals who had wrongfully taken over the ship, they could have worked together, doing everything they could to get rid of them.

“He’s a legitimate officer,” she said reluctantly. “No matter how checkered his past.”

“Ah.”

“I suppose that means he’ll get a response back on you by tomorrow.”

“It is likely. I can attempt to jam incoming transmissions, but he has warned me that he will be watching and that if I interfere again, he will tear me into a thousand pieces. I would find it difficult to self-repair if I were in a thousand pieces.”

McCall sighed. “I know. Look, don’t meddle anymore. We’ll just… He can’t do anything until he drops off his prisoners. He’ll have to escort them off the ship and into the hands of the authorities at the Frost Moon 3 mine, right? That might be our chance. We can stun him and the pilot in the back, and then take off. We’ll leave them at the prison. Maybe they can mine some coal while they’re waiting for another ship.”

She smiled, liking that idea, especially for Axton.

“That would not solve the problem that imperial law enforcement is soon to know that I’m stolen property,” Scipio said. “Though I would prefer to continue to work with you as your business partner, I do not wish your freedom or person to be endangered because you assisted me.”

“Scipio—”

He never interrupted her, but he lifted his hand and interrupted her now.

“Your loyalty to your friends is to be commended, Captain, but it is anathema to my programming to endanger those I consider friends. I will seek a chance to sneak off the ship on Frost Moon 3 while the sheriff is busy handing off his prisoners. Once I am able to reach a space port or other planet-side area with a communications station, I will send a message to imperial law enforcement, informing them that you were unaware of where I came from and that I left the facility and my previous owner of my own volition. It is not without precedent. There have been cases where androids attempted to proclaim their freedom from their owners and decide their own fate.”

“Androids that go rogue like that are destroyed.”

“Only if they are recovered. I can survive on Frost Moon 3, if need be. I daresay nobody will bother looking for me.”

“Because it’s a thousand degrees below zero down there. Your circuits will freeze.”

“On the contrary. It averages merely twenty degrees Fahrenheit below zero on most of the tundras and ice caps. I am perfectly capable of functioning in such environments and even in space itself, as you know since I have gone out to repair the ship before.”

“Scipio…” McCall groaned and dropped her face into her hands. “What are you going to do on a frozen tundra? That’s a waste of your abilities, and… and—” She tried to swallow down the emotion thickening in her throat. “I would miss you.”

Scipio stepped forward and rested a hand on her shoulder.

She gave him an anguished look, groping for something to say to sway him, something that could keep both of them from getting into trouble.

“I know you prefer not to be touched, but my programming in social protocols strongly suggests that simians find physical contact comforting in situations such as this.”

“It’s fine, Scipio.” McCall waved to his hand. “I’m just frustrated. I don’t know what to do.”

“My solution is the best one.”

“Your solution bites.”

“It bites bestly,” he assured her with a firm nod.

“Was that an attempt at humor?”

“Yes. Did it lighten your mood?”

“No.”

“Are you certain? My files on humor suggest that alliteration and creativity with word play can elicit surprise and a feeling of amusement from listeners.”

“Not in this situation,” she said glumly. “Not in this situation.”

5

A blast of frigid air slammed into Dash as the cargo hatch opened and the Star Surfer’s ramp lowered. Snow flew past sideways, but he couldn’t tell if it was falling from the slate gray sky or merely being hurled about by the wind.

During his career as a bounty hunter, Dash had captured numerous criminals who had eventually been condemned to the mines of Frost Moon 3, but he’d never been here himself. He could already tell it wouldn’t go on his list of places he wanted to revisit.

Axton marched past him, prodding the six prisoners to walk out ahead of him, using his rifle and his burly cyborg muscles to keep them in line. He wore his combat armor and helmet, so he would be impervious to the cold. The prisoners weren’t so lucky. They walked with their heads bowed and their hands stuffed into pockets or under armpits.

Snow immediately stuck to Rose Akerele’s short, tightly curled hair, and when she glanced at Dash, her dark eyes were full of misery and the knowledge that her situation would only get worse. Oddly, he didn’t see regret in her gaze or get a sense of it in her thoughts. She accepted that she’d chosen to join the Alliance, and it had resulted in her ending up here.

Dash felt regret. The Star Surfer hadn’t crossed paths with any other ships on the way to the moon, nor had there been any stopovers on stations or planets. He hadn’t found an opportunity to get past Axton and accidentally let the prisoners out of their cell, though that probably wouldn’t have done anything except get them killed. When it came to battles, Axton was the equal of numerous men, and Dash doubted McCall’s android would have stepped aside and let prisoners take over NavCom.

Dash feared the best he would be able to do was send a message later to let the Alliance know where Akerele was and hope they could stage a rescue. He couldn’t help but feel he’d failed. Yes, he’d been placed undercover to gather information, not free prisoners, but would the higher-ups forgive him when they learned he’d merely stood by and let one of their leaders be marched into a prison mine? Was there any chance he might yet do something?

He looked around thoughtfully. McCall and her android stood at the top of the cargo ramp, also watching the prisoners disembark. Dash stood near them, his hand on his stun gun and his BlazTech pistol hanging in its holster. Axton had ordered him to ensure McCall didn’t try to take off without the two of them.

The prisoner delivery depot was a simple landing pad and an entrance to an underground facility and the mines. There weren’t any other ships around, nor did Dash even see any ground vehicles. It was more than a hundred miles across a frozen tundra and an ice-smothered mountain range to the nearest domed city, which may or may not have any ships capable of flying into space.

Dash wouldn’t blame McCall if she tried to ditch them, but he shuddered at the idea of being stuck here with Axton. Or with anyone.

The wind gusted harder, and Dash could feel his nostril hairs withering and dying. The air stung to breathe and seemed to burn all the way down his windpipe and into his lungs, leaving his insides feeling raw.

Through the white haze, he could make out a few figures exiting the door in the windowless cement dome, the only part of the facility above ground. They wore thick jackets, heavy boots, and headwear that covered their faces, protecting them from the cold. They carried bulky blazer rifles, shielded to work in extreme conditions, and pointed the weapons at the prisoners as Axton approached with them.

It crossed Dash’s mind to shoot Axton in the back right there, while there was still time for the prisoners to race back into the ship, but if he’d intended to do that, it should have been when Axton wasn’t in combat armor. He’d missed his chance. He’d missed many of them. All because he’d feared the consequences of breaking his cover. And maybe, he admitted with disgust, he’d feared Axton a little bit too.

“Scipio?” McCall reached for the android.

Dash hadn’t heard it make any noise, but its face seemed stuck in an expressionless position, and it wobbled on its feet. Before McCall could catch the android’s arm, it pitched backward onto the deck.

Dash glanced toward Axton and caught him looking back with a smug smirk on his face. Had he sabotaged the android somehow? Why?

Abruptly, Dash realized Axton must have received information back on the android. Along with orders to detain it or render it inoperable? Dash was surprised Axton hadn’t shared the information or any of his plans with him.

“Dash,” Axton yelled over the wind. “Come down here.”

He pointed to the icy cement beside him.

Dash glanced at McCall. She knelt by the android—it lay flat on its back, unmoving—and glared, not at Axton but at Dash, as if she believed he’d done this.

Guilt stabbed him. He might as well have done it. He’d been the one to alert Axton.

The guards with their big guns had come forward to take the prisoners, guiding them toward the door in the dome. The prisoners, led by their escorts, bowed their heads lower and hunched their shoulders as they headed for it.

Axton pointed at the ground next to him again as he glared at Dash.

Dash walked down the ramp to join him and find out what he’d done to McCall’s android. Not, he told himself, because he was a dog obeying his master.

McCall surged past him, reaching Axton first. She gripped her stun gun, pointing it at him, though it wouldn’t do any good when he wore that armor. She could stun Dash. He shivered in nothing but his law-enforcer uniform, the icy wind needling him through the material.

Aside from a snagor-hide jacket, McCall was no more protected from the cold than he. Her hand was bare, but it didn’t shake as she pointed the weapon at Axton.

“What did you do to Scipio?” she demanded.

She must have known the stun gun wouldn’t work on him—she was too smart not to—but maybe frustration and fear for her android friend stole her wisdom. She clenched the weapon so hard, it was in danger of breaking in half.

“A simple CPU-lock,” Axton said blandly. “He’s not damaged. His systems are frozen until someone with the key removes it.”

How had he gotten such a thing on the android? Simply ambled up and taken it by surprise?

“Why?” McCall asked.

“Because he’s your pilot, and I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t fly away while I’m taking care of business.”

“I can fly the ship, too, jackass.”

Her bluntness, especially when she’d been relatively polite and reserved around them, surprised a laugh out of Dash.

Axton glared at him.

Movement stirred at the door of the dome. A figure cloaked in furs with a hood pulled up sprinted out into the wan daylight. He tried to wrench one of the rifles out of a guard’s hands as he raced past, but the guard reacted too quickly. He jerked the weapon away and sprang back, making room to fire. And fire he did. All four of the guards on the landing pad did. As the man tried to sprint off into the storm, they slammed blazer bolts into his back.

The man didn’t make it twenty yards before he pitched forward into the snow, screaming in pain.

Dash gaped in horror as the guards calmly lowered their weapons. They turned their backs on the man, as if to say they would leave him—what remained of him—for the weather to finish off.

An eerie predatory howl floated on the wind.

The weather or the indigenous wildlife. Dash couldn’t believe any creatures had evolved on this horrible frozen planet, but it was possible that imperial scientists had genetically engineered animals to survive here, maybe as an extra layer of security to make sure prisoners didn’t escape. Or didn’t live long if they did.

“Sheriff?” a muffled voice asked. One of the prison guards came forward, the other three men flanking him, all with weapons. “We’ve secured the first six prisoners.” No mention of the inmate who’d tried to escape. “Did you say you had more?”

“Yes. This one too.” Axton pointed at Dash.

At first, Dash was too startled and confused to react. Then the men pointed their rifles at him and stepped forward.

“What?” Dash blurted.

Axton smiled tightly. “You think I didn’t know you let those Alliance thugs beat down our ship, Deputy? You’re a damn Alliance sympathizer. I should have figured it out when you first got on my ship, you spineless lickspittle.”

Dash stepped back, but his boot slipped off the cement and into the snow. Icy wind railed at him as one of the guards prodded him with the muzzle of his rifle. There was no place to go.

Idiot, Dash groaned to himself. He’d known Axton was suspicious of him, but he hadn’t believed him smart enough to figure everything out. Dash hadn’t wanted to delve into the cyborg’s thoughts for fear of being caught, but now here he was. Caught. A damn idiot, he was.

Dash looked at McCall, wishing this wasn’t happening in front of her. It was bad enough to be an idiot without having a woman around to witness it.

She looked as stunned as he.

“Take him below with the others,” Axton ordered the guards. “Feel free to let your current inmates know he was a law enforcer. And a traitor to the empire. I’m sure he’ll be extremely popular.”

Dash doubted the inmates would care a whit that he was aligned with the Alliance—these people were all down here because the empire had deemed them criminals—but being known as a law enforcer… That would make a difference. They would all jump him at once if they were told about his current career. Or his old one. A bounty hunter wouldn’t be any more loved.

“Wait,” McCall said, her voice barely audible over the wind.

But Axton, with his augmented hearing, must have heard it easily enough for he turned to face her.

“You can’t decide his fate,” she said. “It’s your duty to arrest a known Alliance sympathizer, yes, but you’re not a magistrate or judge. You can’t try him. You have to take him back to your headquarters and hand him over for due process.”

“Due process.” Axton snorted. “Nobody will care if there’s due process for a traitor.”

“There’s due process for everybody. That’s the law.” McCall clenched her jaw, as if she was truly affronted on Dash’s behalf.

He appreciated that she wanted to stand up for him, but he didn’t want her irking Axton and getting in trouble. He’d seen the cyborg lose his temper before. It resulted in blood loss and sometimes death.

Dash wished he had the mental power of so many of his Starseer relatives, wished he could attack Axton with his mind and knock the guards off the landing pad with a harsh blast of mental power. Granted, telekinetic strength like that was rare these days, but there were some Starseers with it. Not him. Not even close.

“I’m the law in these parts,” Axton said, then turned his back to her. “Guards, take him. Now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Two guards reached for Dash as the other two kept their rifles on him. He doubted he had the power, but he had to do something. He tried to lash out with his mind at the two men holding weapons.

They stumbled, weapons lowering for a second. Dash turned and punched one of them as he kicked out at the other. He connected with both, and for an instant, he thought he might be able to escape long enough to grab McCall and sprint back onto the ship. They could leave Axton and—

No, Axton was far too fast for that. He stomped straight toward Dash.

McCall ran up behind him, and a soft clank sounded. Had she hit him on the back? As if that would do anything. Even if he hadn’t been in armor, he would barely have felt it.

The guard Dash had kicked recovered and reached for him. Dash blocked his grasping hand, then lunged toward the man, leading with an elbow. He rammed it into the man’s chest. Unfortunately, all those layers of clothing stole some of the power of the blow.

Then Axton, in his hulking blue armor, loomed in front of him, and Dash knew it was over. He couldn’t throw an elbow and stop him.

But he tried again to throw a mental attack. It had worked briefly against the others. He imagined a massive brown bramisar springing out of the snow and leaping for Axton and tried to thrust the image into his mind.

Axton spun around. Not, Dash saw, because of the mental attack but because he realized something was on his back. He patted over his shoulder but couldn’t quite reach it.

Dash couldn’t figure out what it was. It looked like the stun gun McCall had been holding, but it stuck to his armor as if it were a magnet.

“Move, Arjun!” McCall barked.

She skittered back toward the cargo ramp. Dash threw himself to the side, not knowing what to expect but trusting he didn’t want to be close to whatever it was.

He crashed into one of the guards who was trying to grab him. Dash grabbed him back, cracked his head into the man’s nose, and twisted, pushing him toward Axton. He stomped on the guard’s instep to convince the man to let him go, then spun and ran. He only made it two steps before he floundered off the landing pad and into the deep snow. One more step and an explosion rang out, white light flashing behind him.

A shockwave caught Dash, hurling him flat onto the snow. The icy stuff coated his face and hands, but he didn’t care. He rolled to the side and scrambled to his feet.

Two of the guards lay sprawled on the landing pad. Axton was down, too, the back of his armor charred black, his faceplate kissing the icy cement. He wasn’t moving.

McCall ran up the cargo ramp. Dash scrambled back onto the cement pad and raced in that direction, visions of escaping in her ship returning to his mind. He doubted Axton was dead, but if he was concussed or stunned for only a minute, that was all it would—

An armored hand blurred as it snaked out to clasp Dash’s ankle. Tremendous force clamped down, and he cried out, pitching to the cement.

Axton moved faster than any genetically engineered predator, and before Dash hit the ground, he found himself turned on his back and smothered by the angry cyborg. Axton’s face was contorted with fury behind the faceplate.

Dash tried to bring a knee up to protect himself, but it cracked uselessly against that armor. He twisted and bucked, but there was no point. He couldn’t have escaped Axton even if the man hadn’t worn combat armor.

A woman’s shout came from the side. Dash twisted his head as much as he could, hoping to see the cargo ramp rising and McCall and her android escaping.

But the ramp was still down. The two guards who hadn’t been caught in the explosion gripped McCall by either arm, and they were escorting her—forcing her—down to the landing pad.

“Take her into that hell too,” Axton snarled.

“What?” Dash blurted.

“She’s got a stolen android aboard her ship. That makes her a criminal, and she deserves to mine right alongside the rest of the criminals.”

The guards paused, looked at each other, then looked at Axton. “Are you sure she’s—”

“Take her.” Axton rolled to his feet, hoisting Dash up with him.

Dash felt like a doll in the hulking man’s grip, his boots barely touching the cement.

“If she didn’t want a room at the hotel down there, she shouldn’t have stolen imperial property,” Axton added.

More guards came out of the cement dome. Dash soon found himself walking next to McCall with men on all sides, pointing rifles at them.

Dash glanced toward the dead prisoner off to the side, a sheet of snow already covering his unmoving form. Dash had no doubt that the guards would shoot him as remorselessly as they’d shot that man.

He looked at McCall, once again with the need to apologize to her. Except he hadn’t even apologized to her the last time.

She stared straight ahead, her face bleaker than the snowstorm, and didn’t look at him.

6

The sound of the wind disappeared as the guards led McCall and Dash into a dim cement stairwell that circled down and down. It grew warmer, which at first seemed a boon, but soon she was sweating. She didn’t know how the guards in their layers and layers of winter clothing didn’t melt into puddles on the steps.

“I’m sorry,” Dash whispered, descending at her side.

He wore a stricken expression.

McCall shrugged. It had been her fault, not his. She’d chosen to open her big mouth—and stick that explosive she and Scipio had made onto Axton’s armor.

When she had envisioned deploying it, she had imagined Scipio at her side, not incapacitated on the deck of the cargo hold. And she had prepared it because she’d wanted to distract the sheriff while Scipio ran off, not because she’d thought he would turn on his own pilot.

Though if Dash was truly some Alliance operative, she wasn’t surprised Axton had chosen this fate for him, especially given his record. Had he planned to dump her down here all along? McCall wasn’t sure. Maybe not. Maybe it had been a split-second decision. Whatever it had been, she had no idea how she would get out of this predicament. And get her ship back. And Scipio. And Junkyard.

She halted as fear pounded her like a mallet. What would that asshole do to Junkyard? Keep him locked up in her cabin until he starved? Shoot him as soon as he stomped on board?

“Keep moving.” One of the guards shoved her.

McCall clenched her fists, aware of the rifles pointed at her but unable to fight down the urge to punch someone. “I can’t. He’s got my dog.”

“Move.”

“You don’t understand. I—”

Someone shoved her hard enough that she pitched down the stairs. She flailed, unable to catch herself, but Dash lunged down and gripped her arm before she tumbled to the hard cement. He pulled her upright. She knew he meant to help, but she didn’t want help. She wanted to get out of there and make sure Junkyard was all right.

She turned, looking back the way they’d come, and saw nothing but darkness and more guards on the stairs behind her. Panic washed over her, and she could hear her own rapid breathing in her ears.

“Don’t fight,” Dash whispered. “Not now. Please.”

He squeezed her arm, but he also seemed to do something else. She felt a strange soothing sensation come over her, something that didn’t originate within her.

It confused her and alarmed her, but the rational part of her mind realized he was right. She couldn’t do anything with all these men around them, watching and ready to pounce.

“He’s not a pilot,” Dash said.

“What?” McCall allowed him to guide her back around, believing the guards were on the verge of cracking her on the head with their rifles if she didn’t, but she couldn’t stop railing at the idea that she was walking farther and farther away from Junkyard. And Scipio. And her ship, damn it. Would Axton think it within his rights to impound it? Or claim it for himself? A law enforcer couldn’t claim a civilian ship for himself, though. Not legally.

“Axton,” Dash said quietly. “He couldn’t fly his way out of a latrine with no walls. He doesn’t have me, so he’ll need your android.”

McCall hadn’t truly thought Scipio was in danger—not physical danger, just in danger of being returned to that wretched facility—but she realized that as long as Scipio wasn’t deactivated, he would take care of her ship. He knew how much Junkyard meant to her, and he would do his best to protect the dog from Axton.

“Assuming your android is willing to work for him,” Dash added. “I admit, I’d be tickled if he kicked Axton’s ass and left him in the snow for whatever was howling out there to eat.”

McCall sighed, her legs numb as they continued descending in circles. “He’s a personal assistant android. Despite his assurances that he’s downloaded the appropriate combat protocols to defend me and the ship, anyone with more than three brain cells could figure out how to get around his martial maneuvers. All you have to do is ask him to make copies of something or fetch coffee, and he defaults to that.”

“I promise you Axton only has two brain cells.”

McCall grunted, deciding not to point out that he’d outmaneuvered Dash well enough.

The stairs finally ended. McCall was shocked that the inmate who’d tried to escape had possessed the energy to sprint out into the snow after climbing fifty zillion levels of steps. She shuddered, remembering the cold-hearted way the guards had mowed him down. Would they do anything to protect the smaller and weaker prisoners from being preyed upon by bullies? She feared not.

Dash brushed his arm against hers, frowning at her with concern. She had no idea what expression was on her face, but she did her best to don a stoic mask.

But maybe that didn’t matter. He always seemed to hear more than she said.

As the guards propelled them down a hot cement corridor, the lightbulbs mounted in cages on the ceiling flickering off and on, McCall thought of the stories of Starseers. Not stories, she amended. It was legitimate history, how the Old Earth colonists who had settled on the now-destroyed planet of Kir had developed certain gene mutations that allowed them to survive the higher-than-anticipated radiation levels on their world, mutations that had resulted in a few strange side effects. Such as the ability to move objects with their thoughts. And read minds. But there were so few Starseers left in the system these days, it was easy to think them just the stuff of legend.

When McCall glanced at Dash again, she found him staring resolutely ahead instead of looking at her. Hmm.

She almost asked, “Can you hear what I’m thinking?” in her mind, but she would have felt silly. Besides, if he could read minds, he should have known what Axton was thinking. Though admittedly, there were also stories of cyborgs being given certain drugs and taught some mental tricks to more effectively battle against Starseers, lest the Starseers attempt to take over the system again, as they had almost done centuries ago.

Clanks and hisses came from behind closed doors they passed. Up ahead, the corridor opened into a room that glowed red. From fires burning? This place was even more antiquated than McCall had imagined, though she shouldn’t have been surprised. The whole planet supposedly ran on coal and what power their underground stations could generate from it.

She remembered some trivia that Frost Moon 3 had once been located much closer to a sun, and had been verdant with foliage, but an asteroid strike had knocked it out of its orbit, leaving it to find a new orbit around a planet much farther from the suns. The geologists who’d explored it early on had been startled to find fossils and coal underneath the permafrost.

“In case we’re about to be separated,” Dash murmured, “thank you for helping me up there.”

“I wasn’t much help.”

McCall shook her head. With Scipio out of the equation, she should have aborted her plan, but she hated seeing other people bullied. As a girl, she’d fantasized about being an android, in part because they had superior strength and no bully would dare pick on them. And in part because they didn’t have feelings so they wouldn’t care if bullies tried.

Her life had been comfortable up until the last week, and she’d almost forgotten about those fantasies, but it was amazing how quickly everything from childhood could come rushing back, given the right—or wrong—situation.

She caught Dash giving her another long look, and she resolved to guard her thoughts around him. Just in case.

“I still appreciate it,” he said as they drew closer to the room, and the sounds of voices flowed out, some angry and harsh. Some laughing. “I didn’t expect you to help me when— Well, I know we didn’t hit it off from the start.”

She shrugged. What was she supposed to say to that? It wasn’t her fault she hadn’t delighted in his humor. He and his boss had taken over her ship without so much as a please.

“I’ll do my best to watch out for you down here,” Dash added. “I’m not— Believe it or not, I’m good in a fight. It’s just hard to do anything against a cyborg in combat armor.” His expression was earnest.

She never quite trusted her ability to read people, but she sensed that it mattered to him that she not think he was a schlub. She had no idea why. They had barely spoken. Though she silently admitted she was glad to know someone else down here. She didn’t like to think of herself as a person who needed anyone else’s help, not anymore, but who knew what lay ahead? She didn’t have access to her ship or her netdisc, the things that allowed her to ply her trade. All she had was her brain. Would that be enough here?

“Thanks,” she said.

Dash nodded firmly, like it meant something. Maybe it did.

Someone cried out in pain, and McCall jumped, instantly thinking of the bloodcurdling screams of the prisoner who’d died before their eyes up above.

Her guards pushed her forward, none of them reacting to the noise.

They entered a large room with the same cement walls and light bulbs in cages as the tunnel, though the ceilings were higher, and rusty machinery ran along one wall. Another wall was open to some kind of pit with a metal balcony looking out over it. The reddish-orange glow came from somewhere down below.

From the door, McCall couldn’t see what lay down there, but loud clangs and hisses came from that direction, battering at her senses. The flickering lightbulbs were already agitating her. Why wouldn’t these people fix them? Or just shut off the ones that flickered?

A groan came from the balcony. A shirtless man stood there, gripping the railing and looking down as someone cracked an e-whip at his back. The white lightning-like cord of energy snapped in the air like a real whip would, and when it landed, the man threw back his head and screamed again. Guards stood around him, these men wearing black uniforms without all the extra jackets, to keep him from escaping—as if the iron shackles around his ankles and chain between his legs wouldn’t do the job.

She looked away as the e-whip cracked again and again, the man screaming every time. She could avoid seeing the torture, but she couldn’t avoid hearing it, and the reality of her situation struck her hard in a way that it hadn’t on the stairs.

“This is why I started working for the Alliance,” Dash muttered, glancing at her. “The empire knows this goes on out here, and they don’t do anything about it. All they care about is that the three border worlds this planet supplies with coal get their shipments. The suns know they couldn’t be bothered to invest in setting up nuclear or quant generators on those planets so they wouldn’t have to burn fuels from the Dark Ages.”

“Shut up.” One of the guards shoved Dash in the back. “And enjoy the show.”

“Enjoy?” Dash growled over his shoulder. “You sadistic asshole.”

“Keep blathering and you’ll be next. Lessons get taught every day.”

“Lessons?” McCall mouthed.

The guard with the e-whip turned off his torture device, thank the suns. A gray-haired guard leaned over the railing.

“You see the price of disobedience,” he called to whoever was down there listening. Listening and watching. “Do your work, and you can avoid this fate. That’s all we ask. Your days needn’t be any more unpleasant than you make them.”

“Easy for you to say from up there,” a voice called from below.

The guard glowered down, then looked at one of the other men and jerked a thumb, as if to say, “Go take care of it.”

McCall’s stomach gave a queasy lurch. Seeing the tortured man’s back didn’t help. It was scorched with deep burn marks crisscrossing his flesh where the e-whip had struck.

“Put them in with the other newcomers,” someone said, pointing at McCall and Dash.

Their guards shoved them along again. They passed through the large room and into a smaller one with stacks of neon green uniforms stacked on shelves along one wall. An assembly line of a sort was in progress, with the prisoners from her ship being first asked questions, then pointed to the shelves where a bored-looking man handed out uniforms and directed the newcomers to one of two doorways.

McCall’s soul withered when she realized her clothing would be taken from her and she would be forced to wear one of the awful garments. She could deal with the color—though glowing like a landing light at a space port wasn’t her preference—but the starched uniforms looked scratchy. She would probably break out in hives before she even touched one.

“Occupation?” another bored-looking man asked someone ahead of McCall and Dash.

She made herself pay attention. They had to go through his station before collecting a uniform.

“Driver,” the addressed prisoner said.

“Mines. Get a uniform and go out the second door. Next.”

The line shuffled forward, the older Alliance woman going next.

“Occupation?” The man sorting people didn’t seem to have any knowledge of the prisoners. One could have said anything.

“Electrician.”

McCall arched her eyebrows. The woman—Rose Akerele, she reminded herself—had been a professor before leaving her university to join the Alliance. She had three degrees, but they had been in literature, publishing and editing, and secondary education. She either had a hobby of assembling electronics kits, or she was a better liar than McCall.

“Plant,” the man said. “Get a uniform and go out the first door. Next.”

“Construction,” the next person in line said.

“Mines. Next?”

McCall shuffled forward with Dash falling in behind her. There was only one more person ahead of them.

“Professional fence,” the fellow declared with a bow. “If you need something acquired or disposed of, I am the man to see.”

The bored sorter grunted. “You were. Mines.”

“Mines? With my skills? I—”

“Get a uniform and go out the second door. Next.”

The “fence” lifted a hand to argue further, but one of the guards jabbed him with a rifle. “Get your uniform, ass-face.”

“Occupation?” the sorter asked McCall.

“Skip tracer, but my degree is in computer science, and I took math and engineering courses in school.” She had no idea if the plant was any less onerous than the mines, but it seemed a place where she could more likely plan sabotage and escape from. “And I listen to my sister talk about her job a lot. She designs all manner of infrastructure and specializes in sewage treatment systems.”

The sorter gazed at her with the kind of bland and unimpressed expression that came standard on androids, and McCall waited for him to jerk his thumb toward the second door, the mines.

“Plant,” he said and told her to collect a uniform.

Huh. Now, she just had to hope that nobody expected her to be able to operate equipment she had no experience with. Though if everything here was as antiquated as the lightbulbs, she ought to be able to figure out most of the systems. She had taken math and engineering courses at the university, even if she had ultimately switched to programming and designing sys-net algorithms, and she could read basic schematics and understood how electricity was generated. Hopefully, that would be enough.

“Occupation?” the sorter asked Dash.

“Pilot.”

“Mines.”

Alarm surged through McCall. Dash had promised to protect her; she couldn’t let him get sent to the other side of the planet. Besides, he was the only person down here she even vaguely knew. The only person who might be willing to help her escape and get her ship, Scipio, and Junkyard back.

“Wait,” she blurted before Dash could be ushered away. “You’ve got all that mechanical experience repairing the ships you fly, don’t you?”

Dash opened his mouth but didn’t speak immediately.

“You’re a mechanic?” the sorter asked.

“I…” Dash nodded, though it wasn’t that convincing.

Hopefully, the sorter wasn’t an acting critic.

“Plant then. First door.”

Dash shrugged, as if it meant nothing to him either way. McCall doubted that was true, but she didn’t know for certain. She was relieved.

“I’m not a mechanic,” he whispered to her as they walked over to collect their uniforms. He sounded worried.

This time, she shrugged, hoping it would put him at ease. “I don’t really listen to my sister when she talks about her job.”

He snorted, or maybe it was a laugh.

The person who handed out uniforms didn’t say a word as he selected sizes and thrust trousers and a formless tunic into each of their hands. McCall frowned. The garments were as starched and rough as she’d feared, and a giant tag that looked like a dagger thrust out of the seam of the top. This was going to be a hell, for more reasons than one.

7

They let him keep his underwear. What a boon. He’d still had to strip naked for an invasive search that had driven home that he was now a prisoner here with no rights to privacy or anything else.

As he waited by the doorway, his back to McCall, who was being similarly forced out of her clothing and searched, he wondered how they could get out of here, cross more than a hundred miles of frigid tundra to one of the domes, and find transport off this ice ball. His best bet would be to connect with other Alliance loyalists who had been captured and thrown in here. Rose Akerele for sure—he was relieved McCall had thought to get them both sent to the plant, the same as Rose. And there had to be others who had been here longer, who, he hoped, might already have some ideas on how to escape.

He ignored the niggling notion that they would have already escaped if there was a way to do so.

“Not that,” McCall blurted.

Dash looked over his shoulder. He’d had his back turned to give her privacy—there were no separate men’s and women’s search rooms—but maybe there wasn’t any point when two leering asses with groping hands were in charge of the pat-downs. The men clearly liked their jobs, as they had demonstrated on Dash. He’d lingered in the doorway to make sure they didn’t like their jobs any more on McCall than they had on him.

“Everything goes in the box except your underwear,” one of the men said, an iron grip on her bare arm.

McCall was already stripped down to her underwear, and they were trying to pull a brass charm bracelet off her wrist, but she was fighting them. One man snatched for her wrist, but she kept yanking it out of reach, her arm darting elusively about like a writhing snake.

The man growled and grabbed the back of her neck instead. She winced and stomped on his instep. Unfortunately, she was barefoot, and the man wore boots. He barely reacted.

“Quit squirming,” he growled, tightening his fingers.

Her eyes squinted with pain.

Dash growled and stepped back into the room.

“Let her go.” He attempted to use his telepathic ability to add power to the words. He occasionally met people with poor mental defenses, and he’d found his skills were just enough to manipulate them. He didn’t like doing it, since he knew that was one of the reasons mundane individuals feared Starseers, but in this case, he deemed it justified.

“Sod off,” the second man growled.

An uncertain expression crossed the face of the man holding McCall’s neck, and his grip loosened.

“Let her go,” Dash repeated, holding his gaze.

The second man started toward Dash, lifting a fist as if to beat him until he left the room. McCall took advantage of the lack of focus on her and yanked her neck away from the guard gripping her. She whirled and kneed him in the crotch, then darted away from him, her hand clasped over her bracelet. She snatched up her uniform—it had fallen onto the floor in the scuffle—and covered her chest as she stood next to Dash.

He resisted the urge to put an arm around her shoulders, remembering how she felt about being touched—she would be even less enthused about it after being pawed over by those two. Besides, they weren’t out of trouble yet.

Since the one McCall had kneed was wincing and grabbing his groin, Dash focused on the other man, the one who’d been less susceptible to his mental suggestion.

“It’s just a trinket,” he said, lifting a hand as the thug stomped toward them, fingers still balled into fists. “It’s not worth much.”

McCall shot him a dirty look at that comment, but Dash kept his focus on the guard, holding his gaze and trying to influence him with his mind.

The man sneered. “Nobody gets to take anything in. Personal belongings just cause fights. She’ll be beat up within the hour by someone who thinks it’s pretty and wants it.”

“What does it matter to you? I’m sure you don’t care if the inmates pound on each other.”

The guard snorted, and Dash sensed that he was right, that the thug had enjoyed watching the inmate whipped earlier. He’d run out of this room to make sure to have a good view of the show.

Dash curled a lip in disgust, wanting nothing more than to pummel both of these goons, but he could hear voices in the next room and was sure help would rush in if he tried. There were old boxy cameras mounted near the ceilings in the various rooms too. Someone kept an eye on the inmates at all times, no doubt.

“Let her keep it,” Dash said quietly, again trying to slip coercive mental power into his words. “It doesn’t matter to you.”

He was aware of McCall watching him and feared she would figure out that he had some mental talents. That he had the same mutated genes as the rest of the Starseers. She had believed she was weird. At least she was fully human in the eyes of the rest of the system. Those who’d driven Starseers underground after the war had been quick to label them mutants. Something less than human.

“Fine,” the guard said. “Keep it. But promise me you’ll let me know when she gets pounded so I can come watch.”

Dash made a rude gesture as he backed toward the door, pointing for McCall to go out first. She hurried to put on her uniform, her back to the hard eyes of the guards.

Dash, already clad in his baggy tunic and trousers, a drawstring at the waist the only means of keeping them on, wasn’t surprised by the discomfort he sensed from McCall when the scratchy garments touched her skin. She’d received a size small and had the opposite problem he had, with everything being tight. Before they’d taken more than a few steps out of the room, she was plucking at the shoulders and thighs, looking like she wanted to take a sewing needle to the uniform. Or maybe a blow torch.

He would have preferred she’d also received one that was too large for her, since the uniform, while not exactly flattering, did less to hide her figure than her usual loose clothing. He decided that he, being a gentleman, would not let himself notice that she had an appealing form.

“More for the plant?” a bored worker with a clipboard asked of them. He carried a blazer pistol on his hip, along with a regular old billy club. More guards loomed in the background.

Rose already stood beside the man. Dash nodded at her, though he had been careful not to introduce himself when Axton had been around and did not know if she knew he was with the Alliance. He had been given a captain’s rank in the organization and trained with the pilots occasionally, but since he had been undercover the last year, he was almost never at either of the main secret bases. It was unlikely Rose had ever seen him, but he hoped to draw her aside for a frank conversation later.

“Yes,” McCall told the man firmly, plucking at her tunic. “Him too.” She nodded toward Dash.

Despite the despair of the situation, he was pleased she wanted to keep him around.

“This way. I’ll give you the tour.” The clipboard man’s voice was monotone. “Then show you your stations.”

“What work will we be responsible for?” McCall asked.

“Shoveling coal into furnaces.”

“So you’ll be making good use of our advanced degrees.”

The clipboard man headed toward an elevator and didn’t respond to her sarcasm.

Dash decided not to mention that he didn’t have an advanced degree, just a pilot’s license. To receive that, he’d spent nine months in a civilian academy. He had spent longer training to fight with the Starseers home guard back at the temple when he’d been a teenager. His mother had thought he might be able to have a career with them based on his athleticism, since his mental skills had been too weak for most Starseer jobs. But the guards weren’t just muscle-heads. There were mental tests to pass as well as physical, and after four years of training, he’d failed the mind part. His mother had optimistically said they would find something else for him to do, but he’d known he would never qualify for another Starseer job, that his skills were too weak. And he’d been tired of the condescension from everyone else. It had been easier to leave the temple.

They exited the elevator into a louder area, with clangs and the grinding of machinery sounding in the distance. McCall grimaced at the noise and twisted her bracelet. Heat blasted them, even more intense than it had been in the tunnels above, and the air smelled of grease and oil and burning coal.

Their clipboard-toting escort pressed his palm to a scanner built into the wall by the elevator. Ensuring the doors wouldn’t open again without it? There weren’t any buttons, and Dash didn’t see any other way of calling for the elevator. Were there stairs somewhere in the facility that led back up to that main level?

A scrape sounded, followed by the clickety-clack of a cart heading down tracks. Dash spotted several men in the back of an automated ore cart, including a couple of Axton’s former prisoners, those who had been shunted off into the mining group. Their cart rolled into a dark tunnel and disappeared. Dash wondered if he would ever see the men again.

The clipboard man led them into a cavernous plant full of bronze and iron with even the floors made from metal plates riveted together. The cement ceiling was high, and from far below, Dash got his first look at the balcony where the man had been tortured. He couldn’t see anybody up there now, but while he was looking in that direction, he spotted more cameras mounted on the walls. It was dimmer down here on the plant floor, and they weren’t that noticeable, but they were definitely there.

Sneaking out of here would be a challenge, but he wouldn’t allow himself to believe it wasn’t possible. What would be difficult would be making it across the tundra. They would need the clothing those guards up top had worn, along with weapons, food, and ideally, some battery-powered heat packs to help keep them warm. It had been daylight when they landed, and even though the suns were wan and weak this far out, he had no doubt it got even colder at night.

McCall looked up as they walked, not at the balcony, but at the Glastica—or was that just glass?—wall of a room full of computers. It was located halfway up to the balcony level but on the opposite wall. A man in a gray uniform sat at a console in there, focusing on his work and not paying attention to the goings on below, where men coated in coal dust shoveled the stuff out of bins and through the open doors of furnaces. The fires inside poured off heat, and the men’s faces were streaked from sweat running down their coal-dusted cheeks.

McCall seemed more interested in the room up above than the furnaces.

“You know what that is?” Dash murmured.

She nodded. “Control room. They should be monitoring the amount of steam generated for the turbines and comparing it with the needs of the electricity users downstream, then sending down orders to burn more or less coal in the furnaces. I didn’t see power lines as we flew in, so I imagine everything is underground, but this seems like a big enough operation to provide electricity for more than one of the domed cities. It’s always a delicate dance for stations to create enough electricity but not too much. I’m guessing the infrastructure in here is as archaic as the method of generating electricity—” she waved to the men shoveling coal, “—and that it’s an on-demand system.”

“Does that help us?”

McCall hesitated. “It could. Let me think about our problem and get to know the layout of everything first. That doesn’t look like a prisoner up there, so it’s unlikely any of us will get stationed in the control room.”

She sounded disappointed. Dash wondered what kind of havoc she could wreak if he could get her up there. He was encouraged that she knew something about how things worked here. All it felt like to him was a layer of one of the sun’s hells, like some Industrial Revolution scene from Old Earth where children toiled sixteen hours a day.

“Well, well, well,” one of the coal men said, turning from his work to lean on his shovel as their group passed. He nudged another man stationed at the same furnace. “Couple of women.”

His buddy grunted. “They’re old.”

“Not that old.” The first man leered at McCall. “She would do.”

Dash bristled and walked closer to McCall. She was so focused on looking around the plant, her eyes taking in the machinery and equipment rather than the workers, she didn’t seem to notice the workers or their attention. She did continue to absently fiddle with her bracelet as she gazed about, but Dash hadn’t observed that it was a nervous gesture—or only a nervous gesture. She seemed to habitually play with it.

The two men jogged to the next station over, nudged two more men, and pointed at Dash’s group.

Dash eyed their escort, wondering if he would stop trouble or if he would get out of the way and let the prisoners settle it among themselves.

The clipboard man stopped in front of a furnace, the door shut and the fire inside burning low. A bin of coal rested next to it, two shovels thrust into it.

“Got two spots available at this station. You can fight for who—” Their escort paused to frown at two men in prisoner uniforms walking up and whispering to each other. One was smothered in coal, but the other wasn’t. He carried a toolbox, so maybe there were other jobs one could be assigned down here.

Dash snorted at the idea of staying here for years, doing one’s duty obediently, and working one’s way up the ranks to less draconian jobs.

“Guard Thomas,” the toolbox carrier said, “you can’t put an old lady to work shoveling coal.” He saluted the guard with a wrench and also saluted Rose.

Rose’s eyebrows twitched at the words old lady, but she did not speak. Dash sensed recognition from her, and he also thought he recognized the toolbox man. Someone else in the Alliance. Good. Dash would seek out the man later to chat, assuming the prisoners were given bunks and time to rest somewhere. He couldn’t imagine being chained to the furnace and told to sleep there, though he supposed it was possible. This wasn’t the Homerian Luxury Hotel in Perun Central.

“I can so,” the clipboard man—Thomas—said. “She’s got hands, the same as everyone else.”

“Nah, come on. I can show her the ropes for pipe repairs and how to test the gauges on the boilers for accuracy. We lost Haruto, so we need someone.”

“We need more people on the furnaces,” Thomas said. “Overseer Holt said so.”

“Looks like you got two able types right there.” The toolbox man waved his wrench at McCall and Dash.

Dash almost commented, but movement behind him caught his eye. That group of men who’d said McCall would do had grown to six, and they were casually ambling in this direction.

“I believe I would be better at such a job as monitoring gauges,” Rose said. “I don’t have any callouses for shovel work, so I’d be largely ineffective.”

Thomas grunted but marked something on his clipboard. “Fine.”

“We’ll show her the ropes,” the toolbox man repeated. “Come by and check up on us later if you need to.”

“You know I need to.”

The two men led Rose away. Dash hoped he wouldn’t have trouble finding her again later. Her and her new buddies if they truly were in the Alliance.

“You ain’t gonna introduce us to the fresh meat, Tommy?” one of the grimy coal men asked, his group of six fanning out behind Thomas, McCall, and Dash.

Thomas turned, a hand resting on his blazer. “You can handle your own introductions. I’m not a butler. Now, back off. You saw the lesson up there. You don’t want to be next.”

“We know you only give lessons to people who screw with the guards. You all don’t care what we do to each other.”

Dash wondered what occupation these brutes had held in their past lives that had earned them places in the plant. For that matter, what did occupations matter if most people here shoveled coal? Was more intellect needed for dumping it into the furnaces than for mining it? Other than gauges on the sides that indicated the heat level inside, Dash didn’t see a lot of sophistication to the equipment down here.

“As long as the energy output stays up,” Thomas said. “We supply half the planet from here.”

McCall’s eyes sharpened at that confirmation of her earlier statement.

“People are counting on you,” Thomas added.

Dash expected the men to snort derisively, but they all paused, their eyes growing glassy for a moment.

“People are counting on you,” Thomas repeated. “Don’t forget it. If you’re going to screw around, do it during your off-time.”

One man grunted. “Yeah, our copious off-time.”

A buzzer went off, and McCall jumped.

“Energy output has fallen off. Get back to your stations.” Thomas pulled his billy club off his belt and pointed at the row of furnaces.

The men slunk off, but not before giving Dash and McCall long looks that promised they would meet again later. Dash sneered defiantly and did his best to look confident in his ability to pulverize them with his fists, mostly because he was sure fear would be preyed upon here. But he wasn’t confident that he could fight off six. Nor was he confident that there would only be six when they encountered the group again.

“You’ve brainwashed them?” McCall asked Thomas when the others were out of earshot.

“Just a little imprinting to make them more agreeable.” Thomas thwacked his clipboard against the coal bin. “Since you two are buddies, you can share the work here. Get this furnace burning hot. Temperature needs to stay in the yellow.”

He pointed at the round gauge mounted near the furnace door. There were three zones painted in different colors, green for low, yellow for optimal, and red for dangerously hot. The needle currently rested at the bottom of the green. The gauge was as antiquated as everything else here.

“If we need a—” Thomas looked at his clipboard, “—mechanic or an engineer of sewer systems, we’ll let you know.”

McCall opened her mouth, perhaps to point out that wasn’t quite what she’d claimed her expertise was, but she closed it again. It probably didn’t matter. Though Dash’s humor was briefly piqued as he imagined a guard dragging her off to fix an overflowing toilet.

“Get to work. Only six hours left until off-time. You’ve got a short day since you started late.”

“Lucky us,” Dash said.

Thomas ambled back in the direction of the elevator. The thugs shoveling coal into their furnaces watched him go, then smiled over at Dash and McCall.

Dash wondered if the pack would wait until “off-time” to make a move. He also wondered how he would fight off so many of them. He looked in the direction Rose and her allies had gone, though they had disappeared from sight. Dash needed to make some friends down here and soon.

“Definitely an on-demand system.” McCall ticked one of her short fingernails against the gauge.

“Have you figured out how that can help us yet?”

She gazed up toward that glass-walled control room. “Not yet.”

“But you will, right?”

“I hope so. Junkyard needs me.”

Dash wasn’t sure whether to be bemused or amused that her dog seemed to be her primary motivation for getting out of there. He liked dogs fine, of course, but if he were in her position, he would want to get his sleek ship back. And to bury Sheriff Axton a thousand feet down in an asteroid hurtling toward the sun.

* * *

Dash shoveled coal into the furnace he and McCall had been assigned, flames now roaring inside the firebox. When the needle reached the optimal heat point, they joined the queue of people hauling ore up in buckets from some deeper level that linked to the network of mines. By the time they had filled their bin again, it was time to shovel more coal into the furnace.

Dour-faced guards monitored everything, as did the cameras mounted on the walls. Dash hadn’t been tempted to test his limits yet and wouldn’t until they knew more about the facility. It was possible to get out, as that prisoner who’d made it up the stairs and to the surface demonstrated, but why had he burst out then, when he must have known all those guards with blazers were just outside?

A glint of light flashed in a hallway leading away from the furnace room, and Dash had his answer. Forcefields. They were likely all over the facility, keeping the prisoners from wandering out of their work and living areas. Perhaps the forcefield blocking access to the surface had been lowered because the new prisoners had been coming in, and that had been the escapee’s only opportunity to get out. Maybe the never-ending labor had made him desperate enough to try what he must have known would be extremely poor odds.

“You two,” a gruff voice said. “Over here.”

A guard and a bald man in a white doctor’s jacket stood at the front of Dash and McCall’s furnace, the guard already gripping her arm. She scowled down at his hand, and Dash remembered her feelings on touching. They weren’t being respected by anyone today. Further, she winced frequently at the ceaseless noises of the facility, and he had the sense of her nerves fraying. He wished he could do something to help her. The clangs and bangs were giving him a headache, but he thought they affected her more.

“What is it?” Dash walked slowly over, eyeing the doctor and a black box he carried.

Using the coal bin like a desk, he opened it and started assembling a piece of equipment.

“Just a little something,” the guard said, “to make sure you don’t get any fantasies about roughing up the staff.”

Brainwashing. They had alluded to it before. Dash’s gut clenched.

McCall looked at the equipment being assembled and then to him, her eyes wide with concern. Even without telepathy, he could have guessed she was afraid of having her brain tinkered with. Her brain was how she earned her livelihood.

Even though it didn’t sound like the doctor planned to reprogram their thoughts or memories, not the way the government did to those who spoke too loudly against the empire and its ideologies, the idea of someone tinkering with his mind made him uneasy too. For one thing, it would be easier to escape if he had no compulsions against attacking the guards, and for another, it was always possible the device would screw something up. He doubted any doctors would rush out to help repair the brain of an inmate who lost his memories. Why bother?

“Who’s volunteering to go first?” the guard asked cheerfully. No doubt, he liked seeing this procedure performed.

The bald doctor had to be nearly seventy and looked tired and indifferent. Being stationed here was probably as much a punishment for him as it was for the inmates.

“I will,” Dash said.

“That’s a good boy,” the guard crooned, as if he were talking to a dog.

McCall opened her mouth, an objection on her lips but shut it again. Dash smiled bleakly. It wasn’t as if it mattered who went first; the other would be subjected to the same treatment a minute later. Unless he could figure out a way to beat the device.

Breaking things with his mind was, like all other telekinetic feats, something he’d never mastered. If he had any hope of affecting anything, it would be the doctor himself.

The doctor stepped toward Dash, a cable attached to a suction cup in his hand. He paused and looked at the guard. The guard pointed a blazer pistol at Dash’s chest.

Dash snorted. There wasn’t much point in fighting the doctor with a dozen other guards stationed around the furnace room. Though the suction cup and device were ominous, and he supposed he could see someone going berserk with fear as they approached.

As the doctor lifted the suction cup toward his head, Dash studied the front of the device. It seemed as simple as most of the technology here, and he wondered if it had been made from spare parts lying around whatever medical facilities the place had. The only things on the front were an on/off indicator, two dials, and a small display.

The cool kiss of the suction cup touched his head, and Dash flinched, but he kept himself from moving back. The doctor flicked a switch to turn the machine on. A sharp stab made Dash gasp, as if a needle had gone through his skull and into his brain. It hadn’t, had it? He lifted a hand, wanting to check, but the guard frowned and tightened his finger on the blazer.

Dash took a deep breath and tried to force his mind to calmness, to the state he needed to use his mental powers. He gazed at the doctor’s face as the man started fiddling with dials. What did he expect to happen? Dash managed to pluck a thought from his mind, one right on the surface. The doctor would turn the device on, rotate that dial, choose one of three programs, and wait for the readout to display that the job was complete.

Dash willed him to believe he’d already started the program running. The doctor hesitated with his hand in the air, his brow furrowed. Yes, he’d already done it. As he had hundreds of times before. To turn the dial again would be repetitive and useless.

The doctor looked toward the display, waiting for the expected readout. Since Dash had seen it in his memories, he had little trouble inserting it into his mind. He just hoped the doctor wasn’t one of those perceptive souls who would see through his manipulation.

“Done.” The doctor lowered his hand.

Dash exhaled slowly and imperceptibly, certain nothing had happened to his brain.

“That was fast,” the guard said.

Dash shot him a worried look. Should he have diddled with the doctor’s mind for longer?

“Guess he has a simple brain.” The guard snickered.

“If you wish to test it, you can poke him with a knife and see if he reacts,” the doctor said, sounding bored.

Uh, was that typical? Dash would have to muster all his will to keep from lashing out if someone stabbed him.

The doctor reached up and removed the suction device, and Dash glimpsed a bloody needle retracting into the cup. Hells, maybe that had stabbed his brain. He shuddered.

The guard stepped closer and prodded Dash in the ribs with the muzzle of the blazer. “Whatcha think, hero? You want to brain me?”

What was the expected response? Dash thought of the thugs he’d seen go glassy-eyed earlier. But they hadn’t said anything; they had simply gone back to work.

“No,” Dash said. “People are counting on us to keep the electricity flowing.”

“Yes, they are.” The guard stepped away and turned his focus on McCall, putting his back to Dash. It seemed to have been a satisfactory answer.

As the doctor lifted the suction cup toward McCall’s head, Dash readied himself to fool the man again.

But McCall balked and stepped back. “You’re not going to give me a fresh needle? Or at least clean that? Are you trying to share blood-borne pathogens among the inmates? That’ll affect production, you know. Sick people can’t work.”

The doctor gave the guard an exasperated look. Dash decided not to be offended that she believed he might carry some awful disease in his blood. No, just tainted Starseer genes, he thought. But she didn’t know about that, and it wasn't as if they could be transmitted through a needle, anyway.

“What?” the guard asked the doctor. “You want me to shoot her?”

“A stun gun would suffice.” The doctor glared at McCall but dug into his kit.

She folded her arms over her chest and looked at Dash. Squinted at him. He sensed she was trying to tell if he’d truly been altered.

The doctor wasn’t looking, so Dash shook his head slightly. He was tempted to hold a finger to his lips to suggest she go along without struggling, so it would be easier to place memories of a standard procedure in the doctor’s mind, but he couldn’t do that without letting her know he had the power to affect people’s minds. And if she learned that, she would learn everything. He didn’t know how she would react, but he cringed at the idea of her drawing back in fear or repulsion of him. There was a reason he never told anyone about his genes anymore.

“A fresh needle,” the doctor announced, inserting it and tossing the other one on the floor.

Dash grunted. He hoped this wasn’t the doctor he would see if he ended up stabbed by another inmate. He had to be close to retirement; it was clear he didn’t care about anything.

“Happy?” he asked.

McCall eyed the discarded needle on the floor. “I’d be happy if that had gone in a biohazard disposal container. And if you swabbed that suction cup with alcohol.”

“Where do you find these people?” the doctor asked the guard. Apparently, most prisoners didn’t care about medical hygiene.

“I just work on Sub-level Sixteen here. I don’t find anyone.”

The doctor affixed the suction cup to McCall’s head. She flinched when the needle penetrated. Dash didn’t blame her. He gave her what he hoped was a comforting nod, then focused his attention on the doctor. Once again, the doctor paused before actually touching a dial.

The first time, the guard hadn’t been watching, but he frowned over now, noticing the hovering hand. Shit. Dash couldn’t diddle two people’s minds at once. He would have to pick. But if he let go of his hold on the doctor, the man might turn the dial and start his brainwashing device on McCall. Dash had no idea how they would get out of here, but he wanted her as eager to pummel guards as he was.

“Don’t step on that,” McCall said, drawing the guard’s attention.

“What?” He looked at her.

Dash exhaled a relieved breath and renewed his focus on the doctor, urging him to believe he’d already turned the dial and was merely waiting for the machine to finish its work.

“That needle on the floor.” McCall pointed down at it. “It could go through the sole of your boot. Dash there used to be a bounty hunter, and you know what kind of unwholesome lives they lead. He probably has all manner of sexually transmitted diseases that you could get from his blood.”

Dash choked and almost lost his concentration. He shot her a quick dirty look, then worked on making the doctor believe he saw a readout that confirmed the device had completed its task.

The guard did not notice. He was too busy staring down at the needle, stepping far, far, away from it, and shifting his hand protectively over his crotch.

When Dash finished his manipulation, the doctor proclaimed that the procedure was complete. McCall looked at Dash again. She quirked her eyebrows slightly. Had she known what he was doing? It didn’t seem possible, but if not, why had she deliberately drawn the guard’s attention away from the device?

Dash swallowed, wondering how much longer he would be able to keep his secret from her.

8

McCall’s hands were bleeding. She would have given her entire wine collection, including the rare Hyrulacian sangiovese she’d accepted as payment from a vintner needing an employee-turned-thief hunted down, for a tube of QuickSkin. Instead, she had pieces of a dirty rag wrapped around her palms. The impromptu bandages did nothing to help with the pain and were surely a breeding ground for bacteria.

When a guard had directed her and Dash to a set of bunkbeds, she’d flopped down on the bottom one, exhausted from the hours of shoveling. Later, she would find the lack of privacy loathsome—there had to be a hundred bunks in the cement-walled bay, most with people sitting in them—but for now, her weariness made her too numb to care. And her stomach kept whining pitifully. She had no idea what time it was on board the Surfer now, but it had been late afternoon when they’d landed. That had been… ages ago, it seemed like.

“You all right?” Dash sat down on the end of the bunk she’d claimed, waved at her hands, and gave her a concerned look.

Normally, she would have bristled at someone she barely knew sitting on her bunk uninvited, but it wasn’t truly her bunk, as she’d only been lying there for two minutes, and at some time during the long day, she’d started thinking of him as an ally rather than “someone she barely knew.” Besides, she had a question for him, one that she’d been mulling over as she’d been contemplating ways they could create a distraction and get out of the facility.

“Yeah,” she said, even if it was a lie. Tomorrow would be even worse. It would take days for the blisters to heal and the skin to grow calloused enough for hours of shoveling, and she wasn’t sure her senses would ever grow calloused enough to handle the noise of this place.

“I’m almost as bad.” Dash held up his hands, broken blisters moistening his palms. “If you feel better knowing someone else is miserable too.”

“I suspect everybody here is miserable.”

McCall sat up and scooted closer to him so they could speak privately. People talked on the bunks nearby, and even though they all wore green uniforms, she wouldn’t be surprised if there were spies planted down among them to report on prisoners making escape plans.

Dash raised his eyebrows at her closeness. She didn’t know if that meant he minded or if he was surprised by it.

She drew her knees up as an added barrier between her and the rest of the bay and crooked a finger so he would lean in closer.

“Given that I just showed you my unsexy, pus-dripping hands,” he said quietly, “I’m guessing you’re not inviting me over for a kiss.”

“No.” She couldn’t keep a bewildered expression from escaping to her face, though right afterward, she realized he was joking. Amazing that he had the energy for humor after the day they’d had. “Also, that’s not pus. Most blisters are filled with clear fluids. Plasma or serum.”

“Most blisters, you say. Mine could be special.”

“I doubt it.”

“Are you sure? Other parts of me are special.”

She tried to decide if he was flirting. Given their situation and the amount of coal dust slathering their exposed flesh, it seemed ludicrous.

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said, waving him closer when someone sat down on the bunk right behind them.

“You’ve noticed my specialness? Excellent.”

“What’s the deal?” she whispered, flicking a finger toward his forehead. “You’re telepathic?”

All trace of humor vanished from his face. He drew back, his expression guarded.

She squashed irritation and told herself he might have some emotional baggage if he was telepathic since that would mean Starseer genes, and Starseers were less popular than toenail fungus these days.

“I only ask,” she whispered, waving for him to bring his ear closer again, “because it could be useful, an asset we have to help us get out of here. I don’t care about anything else.”

“You don’t care?” His forehead crinkled.

“Not unless you can fling guards across the room with your mind.” That would have been handy, but she hadn’t heard of anyone with abilities like that in the modern era. Supposedly, a few centuries back, before their genes had become diluted from mating with people from other planets, some Starseers had been able to do such things. “You can’t, can you?”

“I can’t even fling a peanut across the room.” Uncharacteristic bitterness laced his tone.

“You wish you could?”

He looked away. McCall took a slow breath, forcing herself to wait silently. She had enough issues of her own; that ought to make her good at being patient with other people with issues, right? Not that she was that patient in dealing with her own. She mostly got frustrated. Especially when she was somewhere she didn’t have access to her usual outlets for settling her mind, running on the treadmill or painting landscapes in her studio.

“A typical Starseer could,” Dash said quietly, gazing across the bay instead of looking at her. “I’m not typical.”

“No, you said you were special, right?” she asked, thinking humor might make this easier for him. Not that she was great at making jokes other people found funny. “Or is that just your pus?”

He smiled faintly. “I thought you said it was serum.”

“Possibly plasma.”

“Exciting options. Do you have a medical background too?”

“No, I just read books.”

“About pus?”

“Are you deliberately changing the focus of the conversation from you to me?” McCall asked.

“You don’t miss much, do you?”

“I miss a lot actually, and I scramble like mad to compensate so people don’t notice.”

He looked at her, that furrow creasing his brow again.

She waved away the comment, not feeling like explaining her issues. Her issues weren’t going to help them get out of this hellhole.

“The telepathy,” she said. “You can use it to influence people? Like that doctor?”

Dash hesitated. “Just a little and only if someone is susceptible to it. Some people have naturally stronger mental defenses than others. I’m not…” He hesitated again and plucked at a seam in the thin mattress. “By Starseer standards, I’m very weak. At mental skills. There’s nothing wrong with my body or my muscles or anything.” He glanced at her as if worried that mattered to her.

She shook her head, willing him to continue on with the relevant information.

“My mother is a Starseer,” he murmured. “I grew up in a temple on Arkadius and was trained, the same as the rest of the Starseer kids, but I didn’t have as much aptitude as most of them. No matter how hard I worked at it, I couldn’t do the things others did easily. I can speak telepathically, yes, and do a few mind tricks, but I have no aptitude for telekinesis or transmutation or so many of the typical Starseer skills. I wasn’t good enough to get a job or have a career of any kind in the temple, so I left to do the only thing I was good at, flying ships. I thought about going into the fleet, but I was afraid they would pry into my background and find out where I came from. I got a…” He frowned at her. “You don’t care about any of this, do you?”

She drew back. Had she conveyed that? She hadn’t meant to; she was impatient because what she wanted to know was if he could manipulate the guards, or, even better, the operator up in that control room.

“No, sorry. I mean, yes. I mean, I can care later. It’s just not what I was asking about now.” She rubbed her face, feeling the heat in her cheeks. Why was this flustering her?

Fortunately, he looked more amused than hurt or annoyed. “I can’t believe I’m making this huge confession about my past and who I am, and none of it fazes you. Most people would be jumping off the bunk and thinking me a mutant by now. And a threat.”

McCall snorted. “Like I’m going to judge someone for their genes. You should see all my mutations. My dad was a scientist and spent ten years studying oceanology on the toxic-sludge-filled planet of Umbra before going off to fall in love with and marry my mom. That’ll hork up your genes for a couple of generations. And he wasn’t even normal to start with. He was like me and my sister. My poor mom was so confused by all of us.”

He seemed taken aback by her deluge. Maybe she shouldn’t have shared it. But he’d been sharing his life story. Hadn’t it been her turn? This was what people did when they were stuck together in prisons, wasn’t it? She was positive it happened in all the action-adventure holovids.

“At least your genes give you useful powers,” she finished.

“Hm, yours seem to, too.”

“Hardly.”

“That’s them,” a deep voice said.

Dash tensed and ducked his head to stand up between the bunks.

McCall grimaced. She had expected trouble when those thugs had approached them earlier in the day. She wished she had some more of those grenades she and Scipio had jury-rigged. Though those would kill people who weren’t in combat armor, and that was never her goal. They had only wanted to concuss Axton, at least daze him for a minute, long enough to get back onto the ship and escape.

“Law enforcer,” the voice said as McCall stood up behind Dash. There wasn’t room enough for them to stand side by side in the aisle between bunkbeds.

She peered around his arm and didn’t think she recognized the speaker, but she couldn’t be sure. She struggled to tell people apart when they all wore the same uniforms and were all covered with the same black coal dust.

“This isn’t a good place to be a law enforcer,” someone else said.

The people in the nearby bunks slunk away while others from elsewhere came closer, joining the big man making accusations.

“Law enforcer?” Dash asked. “You’ve got the wrong person. I’m just a pilot.”

McCall backed toward the narrow aisle between the wall and the heads of the bunks. She looked both ways, groping for inspiration. She was accurate with projectile weapons but a klutz when it came to hand-to-hand combat, despite the numerous lessons she’d paid for over the years. Early on in her career, she’d learned it was wisest to just find the criminals and leave the apprehending of them to others.

“A pilot law enforcer,” the big man snarled, then laughed. Pleased with his wit, was he?

McCall spotted Rose Akerele. She sat several bunks down, talking to the two men who’d collected her from the guard earlier. She didn’t seem to have noticed the people gathering around Dash, or maybe she wanted to stay out of trouble.

Though she hated to leave Dash with nobody at his back, McCall hurried toward the woman. If she could get help, that would be more useful than her own meager fighting skills.

“Rose,” she blurted, skidding to a stop in front of her bunk.

The two men surged to their feet. As if McCall was the threat.

“Yes… Captain?” The professor recognized her from the ship, but McCall didn’t know if that was a good thing. They had never spoken. Axton had been protective of his prisoners and kept her away from them. “Richter, I believe I heard?” the woman added.

“Yes. It’s Dash—Arjun Deshmukh. He needs help. He’s one of you.” McCall waved to include all three of them, though she could only assume the men were in the Alliance. Why else would they have drawn Rose aside earlier?

“One of us?” the man who’d carried the toolbox before, a mechanic presumably, asked.

“Alliance,” McCall whispered by habit. It was a curse word in most of the empire. Whether that would be true here or not, she did not know.

An indignant shout came from farther up the bay, from where McCall had left Dash. It wasn’t his voice, but she had a feeling any attempts he was making to manipulate minds wasn’t working.

“Are there more of you here?” McCall asked. “Enough to help him?”

The mechanic leaned out into the main aisle to look at the growing crowd.

“Uh, no. Not against that many.”

“We would be risking our necks to help him, regardless,” the second man said.

“He’s a pilot. Your people need pilots, don’t they?” McCall tried to think of an argument that would sway them to help, since she didn’t have a backup plan. If those men attacked en masse, Dash wouldn’t have a chance at surviving, and he was her only ally here. She touched her bracelet. The only person who cared about helping her.

“He’s nothing here,” the mechanic said. “The same as the rest of us. We’ve been trying to figure out a way to escape for months, but there are forcefields that block the exits or doors that require a retina scan or palm print. As much as we’d like to, we can’t knock out the guards and use their palms.” He twitched a frustrated hand toward his temple. “The only tech in this place, and it’s in the locks.”

McCall waved away the detail for later consideration. “I can get us out. But I need Dash’s help. He’ll pilot us out of here once we get to a dome and find a ship.”

“Aren’t you listening, girl?” the second man asked. “We can’t get out of the facility.”

“Yes, we can. But we need his help.” McCall barely resisted the urge to grab their arms and forcibly propel them into the aisle and toward the fight. And only because she doubted it would work. “We’ll take you with us when we go.”

“How noble of you,” the mechanic said.

A smack drifted to them. It sounded like the smack of a fist striking flesh. Shouts followed, drowning out further fight sounds. McCall clenched her fists.

“Will you join the Alliance if we help?” Rose asked.

What?

“No,” McCall said before she could consider if a lie might serve her better here. But she couldn’t lie, not about this, not when she would be held accountable later. “But I’ll pay you, make a donation. Whatever.” Even that seemed blasphemy, but if she had to promise something, she could make a monetary gift untraceable. “And Dash is already in it. Don’t you care about your own people? How are you going to win against the empire if you don’t stick together? It’s not like you have the numbers.” McCall was almost yelling to be heard over the chaos of the increasingly loud fight. Was everyone down there against Dash?

Rose looked at the mechanic. “Do you have any more people you can get to help?”

“I don’t know,” he said dubiously. “Walters is the only one who would jump at the opportunity, and he has those broken ribs from the last time he jumped.”

“Check.”

He sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”

A scream of pain echoed from the walls. McCall winced. That was Dash.

“Hurry,” she urged the Alliance people, then ran back the way she had come.

Bunks skidded, and bystanders cried out in alarm as they scrambled out of the way. McCall could see people, lots of people, through the posts of the bunkbeds, but she couldn’t tell if Dash was in the middle of it all. Not everybody was engaged in a skirmish. Some of the people on the outside were waving their hands and goading but nothing more.

McCall edged as close as she could and climbed onto an upper bunk. She stood, legs bent for balance since people kept ramming against the posts. It was a precarious perch, but she could see over their heads now. And she winced again.

Dash was in the middle of the writhing mass, surrounded by thugs. Three men were on the floor at his feet, clutching injuries and groaning, but far more were on their feet and throwing punches.

Two men lunged at Dash from behind and grabbed his arms. He kicked backward, taking one in the gut as the big man who’d originally spoken lunged at him from the front. Dash bent low enough with his kick to avoid the leader’s grasping hands.

Without putting his foot down, he whipped a hook kick toward the second man who’d grabbed him from behind. He twisted his hips and somehow found an angle to pull his foe off balance with his leg. The man released him, wobbling, and Dash grabbed his arm and tugged him further off balance. He heaved his assailant toward the leader.

Unfazed, the leader punched his own cohort in the face and shoved him aside.

Dash jumped back, attempting to give himself space to maneuver, but the crowd closed in, pushing him forward. Someone threw a homemade club, and it struck Dash in the back. For a second, it distracted him, and the leader roared and sprang in, grabbing him by his tunic.

“You’re dead, law man,” he roared.

There was nothing McCall hated more than being useless. Before she knew what she was doing, she leaped off the top bunk, over a man’s head, and landed on the leader’s back.

She squished her boobs and knocked the air from her lungs in the process, but she hung onto the bastard, wrapping her arms around his throat. That was as much to hang on as to choke him, but she realized she was in a position to do the latter and squeezed hard.

Dash blinked in surprise at her sudden appearance but didn’t hesitate for long. He lunged in and rammed a palm strike into the leader’s face. The thug’s head whipped back, almost smashing McCall in the nose. She jerked her face to the side, but his rock-hard skull still caught her in the temple.

Frustrated and hurt, she took out her aggression by choking harder.

The man reached up and grabbed her arms, and with his chest now exposed, Dash rammed an elbow into his sternum. Bone or cartilage crunched audibly. Dash struck again. The leader’s legs buckled. He went down so fast, McCall couldn’t let go in time, and she collapsed on top of him.

Dash hefted her to her feet but released her immediately, balling his hands and spinning to meet another attacker. McCall lifted her own fists, trying to fight down her sheer terror at being in the middle of a writhing, angry mass of people, people who would willingly trample her to get to Dash.

Someone lunged at her, and she ducked, batting the arm away with a wild block. Her adrenaline made the movement so rapid, she almost missed her target.

Before she had to block a second time, shouts came from behind the crowd. The thud of wood or metal striking flesh sounded, and a cry of pain rang out. Some people turned toward the noise. Some people kept fighting.

“Back to back,” Dash barked, pressing his shoulder blades against hers as he squared off with two new opponents.

Another homemade club spun over the crowd toward Dash’s head.

“Down,” McCall ordered.

Instead of crouching, he turned and caught it in midair. He promptly gave it to her even as he blocked a punch from one of his attackers.

She took it, glad to have more than her fists to use against these people. Fortunately, nobody was focusing on her. Most of their assailants had turned toward the new threat from the back. Rose and her Alliance friends? McCall hoped so. She’d hate to think it was another group of belligerent thugs mowing down everyone in their eagerness to reach Dash.

It took a few more minutes, but the fight slowly abated, with people either dropping wounded or unconscious to the floor or shuffling off, abandoning the cause as lost.

McCall found herself facing the mechanic and five other men gripping hammers and wrenches. Rose stood several meters back, watching with a worried expression on her face. She probably feared she’d made things worse for her and her friends by siding with McCall and Dash.

McCall silently vowed that she would make good on her promise, that they would all get out of here soon.

Ragged breathing came from behind her—maybe it had been there the whole time, but the bay had been too loud for her to hear it. Dash. His shoulders were heaving, blood ran from both of his nostrils and a split lip, and his left eye was already swelling shut. But he wore a triumphant expression. There were eight people on the floor around him now.

“You’re not a half-bad fighter,” McCall observed, thinking that would please him.

“Thanks.” He grinned, then wiped his face and looked down at the blood smeared on the back of his hand. “So, is this serum or plasma? Or pus?”

“That’s blood, you loon.” She almost added that technically there was serum in it, but he spoke again.

“So nothing too bad? Good.” His grin widened.

McCall shook her head, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Thanks for the help.” He squeezed her and let go before she could decide if she wanted to inform him that she didn’t like hugging. Scipio would have assured her that this was one of those cases where human touching was appropriate. Besides, it hadn’t been that bad.

“Captain Richter? Deputy Dash?” Rose said, coming forward, her allies flanking her. “We need to talk.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dash said. “I was planning to look for you, so it’s convenient that you came to my assistance.”

“Assistance?” the mechanic asked. “We saved your hairy ass, man.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure McCall here did that.” Dash looked at her, his grin wider than ever. By the suns, had he found this experience exhilarating?

McCall was shaking—from pure terror, not exhilaration.

“That is true,” Rose said. “She’s the reason we came to help.”

“She is?” Dash looked like he was thinking of hugging her again.

McCall decided she wouldn’t mind. She was surprised at how delighted Dash looked, and it made her feel good to know she had been useful. Even if her boobs and her temple hurt. She decided flinging herself onto a man’s back from six feet up wasn’t advisable.

“She’s also the reason why we might all be dead by morning,” the mechanic grumbled.

Dash’s grin finally faded. “Oh? We better talk.”

“That’s what we’ve been saying.”

McCall trailed Dash and the Alliance people to their bunks, wondering if maybe she hadn’t been as useful as she’d thought.

9

Dinner, if one could call a bowl of gruel such, had been served shortly after Dash’s fight and had distracted everyone for a time. Thankfully, the lights had been dimmed for the night soon after. A couple of bulbs burned in the halls to either end of the bay, so Dash could make out the faces of the Alliance people, a group of nine including Rose, as they sat together and spoke.

Rose wasn’t saying much since, as a newcomer, she didn’t know any more than Dash did. He, McCall, and the Alliance people sat facing each other on two lower bunks. A young man with bandaged ribs sprawled on one of the upper bunks kept leaning over the side to look down at them. His blue eyes gleamed with keen interest, and Dash thought he looked familiar, but nobody had introduced him yet, unless telling him to relax and let the higher-ranking officers figure things out counted.

McCall sat on the end of the bunk next to Dash, perched on the very edge and looking like she would rather not have been dragged over to this meeting. She had approached these people but only to help him. And damn if he wasn’t grateful for that help. He had sensed that the big brute wanted to kill him simply because some other law enforcer had put him in this place.

A lot of the people here wanted to kill him now that they knew about his law-enforcement career. Even in the dim lighting, Dash could feel their stares coming from bunks up and down the bay. He’d had to wall off his mind the best he could because he could also sense the loathing emanating from them.

“There are cameras,” the mechanic—Jae-yoon, Dash had learned his name was—said. “We can’t sit here and plot for long or someone will come in to break it up. Tell us what you need to know. She—” he thrust an accusing finger toward McCall, “—said you could get us all out of here if we helped.”

“We would have helped one of our own anyway, if the odds hadn’t been so far against us,” a burly, broad-shouldered man said—James. Dash had met him on the floor earlier where he’d been loading coal at one of the other furnaces. “But we’re in the minority here, as you may have noticed. And by helping you… Like Jae-yoon said, we could get jumped in the morning and be thrown in the furnaces now that we’re associated with you. It’s happened to people before.”

“The last law man ended up in there,” Jae-yoon said.

“I don’t suppose it helps that I’ve been a deputy for less than a year and only got into the job to help the Alliance,” Dash said.

“We like that, but it won’t matter to them.”

“I would have helped,” the young man on the upper bunk said. He had shaggy blond bangs that hung in his eyes. “But nobody came and got me.”

“Because you’re injured.” Jae-yoon gave him an exasperated look.

“I still would have helped one of our own. I’m Walters.” He tried to extend a hand down toward Dash but winced in pain and thought better of the gesture. “I’m going to be a lieutenant soon. I just finished school, and I’m going to become a pilot. Like my uncle. I’m going to be a hero!”

The rest of his comrades collectively rolled their eyes. Rose smiled faintly.

“Who’s your uncle?” Dash asked, though if surnames were anything to go by, he might know.

“Admiral Fletcher Walters. Do you know him? We’re real close. My whole family is. We practically started the Alliance on our own. We’ve always fought oppression all the way back to Old Earth. There was a General Walters in the American Revolutionary War. Did you watch vids about it in school? We fought the Starseers during the uprising too. Killed hundreds of those mutant bastards. My great, great, great-grandfather fought beside Saint Alcyone when she turned on her own evil kin and became a hero.” He beamed down at Dash as his comrades waved him to silence.

Dash barely noticed. His mind had gotten hung up on the sentence about killing mutant Starseer bastards. Even though the kid was talking about something that had happened centuries ago, Dash couldn’t help but be chilled by the reminder that he wouldn’t be welcome in the Alliance or in this group of people if they found out about his abilities and heritage.

McCall looked at the side of Dash’s face, and he sensed a question in her mind. Was he all right?

He smoothed his face, worried he wore a panic-stricken expression.

“Who are you in the Alliance?” James waved toward Dash. “You seem familiar, but with our forces so scattered about…”

“As it happens,” Dash said carefully, “I’m a captain with the sky-darter battalion under Admiral Walters. Technically, Lebedev is my direct superior, but the admiral flies with us a lot on missions so—”

“That’s because he’s a brilliant pilot,” Walters blurted. “I’d just started my training to become a pilot, too, but then I joined the raid.” He waved to James and Jae-yoon. “And here we are.”

“Yes,” Dash said, agreeing with the admiral’s brilliance, since he knew nothing about the raid. “I go by Dash with the Alliance too. The admiral and Lebedev know me well from our practice skirmishes, but mostly I’ve been undercover and trying not to be well-known, at least to the empire. Colonel Hemsworth from Intel is who gives me assignments and who I interact with.”

“You’re a pilot and a spy?” Walters asked. “That’s blazing.”

Rose nodded to the group. “I know Admiral Walters and Hemsworth too. The colonel is at all the meetings.”

Dash sensed that he’d passed a test of sorts, that they now believed he was in the Alliance. So long as he kept any of these people from figuring out that Walters’ ancestors had once battled his, he had nothing to worry about.

“Yup,” Dash said to Rose, “that’s what colonels do. Meet.” He shifted toward McCall, wanting to move on to more important matters than introductions. “You have an idea for getting us out of here?”

He sure hoped she did, because he hadn’t been here long enough to know anything or have any ideas of his own.

She nodded slowly. “Out of the facility, yes. But I don’t know where gear or provisions are kept that could keep us alive crossing the tundra and the mountains.”

“I have a key to the supply closets,” a wiry mouse-faced man said.

Marco, Dash recalled from earlier introductions.

“I made the mistake of telling them I was a plumber once,” Marco said, “and they put me in charge of cleaning and fixing lavs. It’s the same keys for the cleaning supplies as for the guards’ supply closet with their outdoor gear, but there are forcefields that keep us from getting to it most of the time, unless it’s one of those days when they’ve shorted out. That happens sometimes, but it’s random. You can’t count on it. I’d need the forcefields to be down and to have twenty minutes of not being monitored to get enough gear for everyone. Even then, I’m not positive there are heaters or tents or sleeping bags. Or even if the clothing is rated for extended stays on the surface. Nobody here goes out for more than sweeping snow off the ventilation ducts or collecting supplies and new prisoners.”

“We’ll have to risk it,” Rose said. “We can walk through the nights until we reach the domes. But that’s another problem. Getting into the domes and getting a ship. Dome Seven is the closest, and they’ve got underground trains to Dome Four where the space port is, but the entrances are monitored from what I’ve heard.”

“We can worry about getting into the domes once we get to one,” James said. “How’re we going to get out of here? We can’t get past the forcefields as long as they’re up.”

“You can’t knock out the guards,” Walters said in a mournful tone. “I tried.” He flicked his hand toward his midsection. “Tried to overcome the brainwashing they do to attack them. But the empire’s as bad as Starseers, screwing with your head. I can’t wait to learn to fly so I can shoot the lot of them.”

“Have you considered the forcefields?” Dash asked McCall, wanting to steer the conversation away from Starseers.

The kid seemed to have an obsession, one that made Dash nervous. As goofy as Walters was, he probably was close to his uncle if he’d followed him into the Alliance. All it would take was a word in the admiral’s ear to end Dash’s career with the only organization he had ever longed to be a part of.

“We can knock out the power,” McCall said quietly.

“How?” Jae-yoon asked. “We don’t have any access to explosives, and I have no idea where we’d even plant them. One of the boilers almost ruptured by accident once, and that caused a huge ruckus, but that would be as likely to get us killed as to drop the forcefields for people to get out.”

“Nothing that violent.” McCall absently spun her bracelet. “And I don’t just want the power out here; I want it out everywhere this station supplies it. Half the domes, it sounded like. That way, when they’re able to get the power back on, they’ll be busy dealing with thousands of reports from the cities. Hopefully, it’ll take them a while to think to check on the prisoners.”

“How do we knock the power out to half the planet?” Dash asked.

“Flood the grid with too much electricity,” McCall said. “Like I said, this is an on-demand system. Even without interference, it’s a very careful balancing act to provide exactly the amount of electricity the population needs and not too much. Throw too much in at once, and circuits will break all over the place to self-protectively keep damage from occurring. When that happens, the power goes out everywhere, including in here, until the flow lessens and people can physically make repairs.”

“How do we flood the grid?” Rose asked.

“We convince people to shovel as much coal as they can into those furnaces, and get me into the control room while it’s happening. Or find another way to convince the operator up there not to pay attention to the alarms going off.” McCall looked at Dash.

He realized why she had been asking about his telepathic skills earlier. She’d wondered if he could distract the operator. It was possible, but getting her into the control room—and the operator out—would be far more reliable. Especially if this would take some time.

“If the electricity in here went out, the forcefields should go down,” Jae-yoon mused.

“But they must have backup generators,” Rose said.

“That would likely be turned on from the control room,” McCall said. “It’s possible there’s an automatic changeover that happens if the main power goes out, but I bet someone in there could interrupt it. I also think it’s very possible that it has to be done manually.” She looked toward the hallway, toward the bare lightbulb mounted on the ceiling.

“There are guards stationed outside the control room,” Jae-yoon said. “I’m sure our prison overlords know that area is a potential vulnerability.”

“We’ll handle them.” Dash pointed at his chest and at McCall. He didn’t even know which hallway led up to the control room, but he didn’t want any of these people seeing him use his mental talents.

“I can help,” Walters blurted.

“You’re injured.” Jae-yoon waved dismissively.

“I could stand watch.”

“We’ll find a position for you,” Rose told Walters. “Everybody will be needed for this to work.”

Dash nodded. “McCall and I just need someone to tell us how to get to the control room. James, can you direct the people shoveling coal to load more than usual?”

“Uh, if we do this on the day shift, I can try. If we’re thinking night, then it would be odd if I showed up out there, ordering people to shovel more.”

Dash looked at McCall.

“Night would be a more dramatic time to knock the power out to all the nearby domes,” she said. “As to the rest, if we can get to the control room, we can activate that buzzer, I should think. Everyone’s programmed to shovel more coal in faster when it goes off, right?”

“Yes, the blasted thing is as much a tyrant as that ass up there with the e-whip,” someone grumbled.

“If the buzzer goes off,” James said, “nobody will think it odd if a few of us dayshift people run out on the floor to help.” He pointed at two other members of the Alliance group.

“Will the guards find it odd if the buzzer keeps going off?” Rose asked.

“Probably not,” James said. “It seems to go off all the time, anyway, day and night.”

“So, we’re trying this tonight?” Jae-yoon asked.

All sets of eyes turned toward McCall.

Her face was a mask, but Dash, sitting so close to her, had no trouble sensing her discomfort at the attention. And her concern that these people were about to depend on her and she might be wrong. He had the urge to clasp her hand, to reassure her, but he feared it wouldn’t have the desired effect.

“We’ll do it tonight,” he said when she didn’t answer. “As you pointed out, you’re all likely to have problems tomorrow because you helped me with that fight this evening. Better that we just be gone in the morning, eh?”

“You say it like it’ll be so easy,” Jae-yoon said with a sigh.

“Just be ready to get some extra people out into the furnace room,” Dash said. “I’ll give a thumbs-up through the glass once we’re inside the control room. Shortly after, you should hear some obnoxious buzzes.”

“Your flatulence from the gruel?” Jae-yoon asked.

Walters snickered.

“Among other things,” Dash said. “Marco, you’re on supplies. Make sure to get everything this group will need to make it to the closest dome.”

“Jannik and Walters will help Marco,” Rose said.

“Getting supplies?” Walters’ lips twisted.

“It’s the most integral part of the escape,” she assured him. “If we can’t survive out there, you’ll never live to become a pilot.”

Walters hesitated, then nodded firmly. “I understand. I’m ready.”

Marco, almost as young as Walters, looked daunted by the responsibility. Dash listed everything for him that was in the law-enforcer planet-side survival kits and hoped the closet would oblige.

“Definitely get a compass,” he added at the end. “If snow like we saw on the way in is common, nobody’s going to be navigating by the stars.”

Dash looked at Rose, hoping she didn’t mind that he had presumed to give orders. He sensed she had some reservations, that she didn’t want this to end up getting her people killed, but when their eyes met, she nodded.

“It would be nice if we could get our netdiscs back too,” McCall grumbled.

“They don’t have mine,” Dash said. “Axton does.”

“I’ll mail it to you when I recover my ship.”

“You don’t think I’ll help you get your ship back? He’s my wayward sheriff.”

“Funny, I thought you were his wayward deputy.”

Dash smiled, though he couldn’t help but think about how, if he and McCall actually got off this moon, they would still be in trouble. By now, Axton must have sent a report off to Headquarters, explaining how Dash and McCall were criminals and why he’d dumped them in here.

“What time are we doing this?” James asked.

“We better wait a few hours for things to settle down.” Dash didn’t think anybody was sleeping yet. The men he’d injured were probably waiting for him to go to the latrine so they could jump him.

“Midnight,” Rose said firmly, glancing toward a clock embedded in the wall and protected by bars. “We’ll be counting on you to get to that control room, Captain Dash.”

“We’ll do it,” he said. One way or another, he added silently, looking at McCall and trying to feel more confidence in her than she felt in herself. Oddly, it wasn’t that hard. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about, and that was good enough for him.

A clang sounded down the closest hallway, a door opening and shutting.

“A guard’s coming,” Jae-yoon whispered. “Meeting’s over. Split up.”

“Midnight,” Dash said with a nod, then touched McCall’s arm and led the way down the dim aisle toward their bunks.

* * *

McCall left her bunk and sat against the wall in a corner of the bay. The snores and even breathing of dozens of felons filled the air.

Her gut gurgled, and she was bloated and uncomfortable. She shouldn’t have eaten that awful gruel. It had looked like corn or wheat or a mixture of the two. Either way, they were things she didn’t usually eat. Things her gut was much happier when she avoided. But she had been too hungry to pass up the gruel. Had she known Axton was going to kick her off her own ship and throw her in prison, she would have found a way to smuggle in a box of Tammy Jammy bars.

McCall tried to tell herself that it was good that her unhappy gut was distracting her from the fact that nine strangers were now depending on her. Nine strangers, plus Dash. If she was wrong about everything, or if she and Dash couldn’t get into that control room, they could all end up shot. Or up on that balcony being whipped. She wasn’t sure which would be worse.

She’d originally envisioned Dash manipulating the control-room operator with his telepathic powers from down below, from somewhere they would be safe if it didn’t work. Maybe they could still try that, but now that they had a whole group of people to sneak out instead of the two of them, everything seemed far more daunting. As did relying on her limited knowledge of how old-fashioned power grids worked. She hoped Dash wouldn’t ask her how she’d gained that knowledge because it had been the same way she’d learned about pus. From books.

A creak sounded, and a dark figure appeared, heading down the aisle toward her. She lurched to her feet, envisioning someone angry over the outcome of that fight and coming to take his displeasure out on her.

“It’s me,” Dash whispered.

“Oh. Hi.”

She almost asked how he’d known where she was but reminded herself that he had extra senses that most people didn’t have.

“Are you all right?” He stopped in front of her. It was too dark to see his face.

“Just regretting the gruel. And that I didn’t pack Tammy Jammy bars.”

He chuckled softly.

For some reason, the sound relaxed her. If he could manage to laugh in this place, maybe she could manage… What? She didn’t know. To go through with what she’d promised and hope for the best? It wasn’t as if she could back out and stay here. She couldn’t leave Scipio and Junkyard to the fate of that maniac cyborg.

Were her friends still on the planet? Probably not. But wherever they had gone, she could find them. It was what she did.

Dash sat down against the wall next to the spot where she’d been sitting. McCall hesitated, not grasping why he would. Was his gut bothering him too? Did he find his bunk as uncomfortable as she had hers?

His face turned upward, as if he was waiting for something. She realized he must have come over to sit with her. Had he sensed her distress?

“Is it all right if I sit with you?” he asked quietly. “I guess I should have asked before sitting down.”

“It’s fine.” McCall returned to her spot on the floor, her back to the wall and her shoulder next to his. “Can you tell what I’m thinking?”

She had gotten the sense that he could back on the ship, that he’d somehow known more than he should have when she’d been interacting with him. How she felt about that, she didn’t know. She considered herself a private person and rarely shared details about herself with others unless she found someone with kindred interests. Once she started burbling about her work or other passions, she had a tendency to overshare.

“Sometimes,” Dash said after a long pause. “I don’t try to read people’s thoughts most of the time, unless I’m in a dangerous spot myself and need an advantage. Or unless someone seems to be hiding something, and I think it could be a problem for me.”

“Such as if they’re not being entirely upfront about their android business partner?”

“Yes.” There was a wince in his voice. “I’d been meaning to apologize to you about that before things got crazy.”

“You led Axton to realize I had Scipio locked away in that cabin, didn’t you?”

“Yes. When we first came aboard, I sensed you weren’t being truthful about everything, and I poked around. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize what I would find exactly, that it—he—means something to you and isn’t something you stole for personal gain.”

McCall sat quietly and digested his confession. She wasn’t surprised. She didn’t think Sheriff Axton was as stupid as one might be led to believe by his thuggishness, but she also didn’t think he had cared enough about her to pry. He had been more worried about getting his prisoners secured. Dash was the one who’d come up to talk to her—question her—in NavCom.

“You’re not saying anything,” he said. “And you don’t have to. I’m just—well, I really do want to apologize. I actually believed Axton had some suspicions about me, so I threw your locked cabin into his path in the hope that he would go focus on you instead. I figured you’d stolen something, but it’s not like I would have cared if you’d taken something from the empire. If I’d known, I probably would have cheered.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Anyway, I’m not explaining myself well, but now that I know you and a little more about the android, I’m sorry I turned Axton in your direction. If not for me, you wouldn’t now be in trouble with the law and you wouldn’t be stuck down here.”

He truly sounded miserable. McCall wouldn’t have minded blaming someone for her week, and maybe when she’d been younger, she would have blamed him, but she could also look back and see all the mistakes she’d made along the way. She was here because she’d stuck her foot in her mouth and said what was on her mind instead of what was wise. It was an old habit and hard to break. And then she’d stuck an explosive on the back of a cyborg. Also not wise.

Dash looked over at her. Waiting for a response?

Ugh, she never knew what to say in situations like these. Was she supposed to agree that he’d been detrimental to her week—and her career—or say it wasn’t a big deal? She didn’t know if she could say that. It was a huge deal. But she didn’t blame him for it.

“I wish I had a Tammy Jammy bar,” she said, then rolled her eyes at herself. Of all the things he might have wanted her to say, that surely hadn’t been one of them. Even if it was her greatest wish at the moment.

He laughed softly. “I wish you had one too.”

“So you wouldn’t have to listen to my gut gurgle?” She wondered if the twinges were audible to anyone except her.

“Just because you want one.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

McCall caught herself turning her bracelet around on her wrist and realized she wouldn’t be able to do that if Dash hadn’t stepped in and manipulated those guards. Her mother had given her the bracelet when she was nine. Actually, it had been a bribe. She had adored it when she’d seen it in a shop and had bounced up and down as she pointed it out to her parents. Her mother had been trying to get her to stop sucking her thumb for ages, and McCall could still hear her all-too-familiar refrain, “You’re far too old for it, and your sister stopped sucking her thumb when she was a baby.” She’d offered to buy the bracelet if McCall agreed to stop the undesirable behavior. McCall had wanted it badly enough to make the deal.

She glanced at Dash, wondering if he was reading her mind. Her cheeks warmed at the thought of him knowing that story.

“When we get out of here,” Dash said, “if you find yourself in trouble with the empire, I know the Alliance would be happy to have you and your skills. We could hide you if need be.”

“I could hide myself if I wanted to,” she pointed out, relieved he hadn’t been reading her thoughts. He might simply be too schooled to let on that he had been, but she would assume he had been dwelling on his apology instead. “It would just be inconvenient to do so,” she added. “I’ve played by the empire’s rules my whole life, almost my whole life, and they’ve left me alone to start my business and carve out a place where I can be myself. I need to see if I can find a way to work things out, maybe offer to pay for Scipio. I would have done that already if not for the military-equipment information locked up in his memory banks, which makes it more complicated than I wanted it to be. But I know enough people in law enforcement and the fleet—I’ve done favors for enough of them—that maybe I can work something out.”

“I don’t blame you for wanting to keep a life you’ve worked hard to build, but this…” He waved a hand toward the bay, maybe toward the whole prison setup. “This isn’t even the worst of what the empire does. You know that, right?”

“I do. And it’s not that I try to look the other way and ignore it… but what’s the alternative? I’m one person, and I’m not even an articulate person. It’s not like I could sway people through oration or write stories and convince them to change the galaxy. I’m just… me.”

“The Alliance is made up of people exactly like you. Well maybe not exactly like you. You’re kind of…”

“Special? Like your pus?”

He snorted. “Unique.”

“Uh huh.”

“But you know what I’m saying, right? The Alliance has lots of ordinary people in it who couldn’t stand the injustice anymore and had to do something.”

“I hope it works out,” McCall said, “but your numbers are so small. It’s hard for me to see how you can win.”

She didn’t say any more because she didn’t want to discourage him, but she felt the movement was doomed, that the empire would squash it and everyone in it as they had so many upstarts before. His ancestors, the original Starseers, had been far more powerful than anyone in the Alliance now, and the empire had squashed them.

“If everybody feels that way, we never will,” Dash said, “but small groups of people can effect change. You’re the one who reads all those books, so you’d be more likely to know, I suppose, but I think that’s how every movement throughout history has started.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall, not convinced the Alliance wasn’t futile. And it saddened her to think of him escaping this prison only to die in some rebel attack that was doomed to failure.

“I’ll stop trying to recruit you now,” Dash said. “It’s become a habit, especially if I like someone and think they have useful skills to offer.”

McCall wasn’t sure whether to be more flummoxed by the statement that he liked her or by the idea that finding deadbeats who skipped town would be useful to an Alliance group determined to overthrow the current regime.

“You like me?” For some reason, her mind decided that was the more important question to ask. As soon as the words came out, she frowned at it in disagreement. Also at the fact that she sounded like a little kid.

“I was on the fence at first—your reputation is off-putting, you know—but then you jumped on a murderer’s back to help me in a fight. That’ll change how a man feels about a woman. And before that, you stood up to Axton for me. And you didn’t run fleeing after figuring out what I am. If you hadn’t looked so alarmed at the idea of kisses before, I would definitely give you one now.”

“I—er.” Hells, why hadn’t she asked him to explain about how her skills could be useful to the Alliance instead? “I’ve always found it to be unpleasant. Kissing. And kind of gross, to be honest. Like drinking out of the same soda bottle but worse. Do you have any idea how many viruses can be spread via oral transmission? Mononucleosis, cytomegalovirus, myxoraengiviridae, oh, and don’t forget bacteria like Streptococcus and Pilocalyx. My sickbay is state-of-the-art, but my ship is MIA right now, and you can’t even get decent food down here, so I shudder at the idea of what kind of medical treatment they offer.”

Realizing Dash was silently rubbing his lips, McCall closed her mouth. He’d just said he liked her, and she’d talked about disgusting diseases. What was wrong with her brain?

Her only hope was that he’d meant he liked her as a friend and had been joking about kisses, not truly contemplating pre-coital acts. That seemed a reasonable assumption. She wasn’t young and vivacious anymore—all right, she’d never been vivacious—and she didn’t get asked on dates that often. Which was, for the most part, a relief, because she never knew how to say no without feeling like an idiot, and rejecting the offer was always her knee-jerk reaction. She did occasionally wonder what she was missing out on by not having a life partner, and she wouldn’t object to the idea of having company on the ship besides Junkyard and Scipio, but she’d always found dating awkward and horrific. The problem was that she didn’t have any idea how to get to the point of being a life partner with someone without dating first. It seemed a prerequisite.

Dash was still rubbing his lips. He shifted his weight, and she worried that he was about to leave after what he must have seen as a rejection.

“You say that man was a murderer?” she blurted into the silence. “Is that a guess or was it extremely foolish of me to jump on his back?”

“Oh, yes. I recognized him. Razor McFadden. He murdered twelve freighter and cruiser captains and fenced their ships on the black market before law enforcers caught up with him. Jumping on his back was definitely of dubious wisdom, but it came at a moment when I was feeling slightly overwhelmed, so I appreciated the gesture. And the startled look on his face when you landed. That was priceless.”

“You’re welcome. If I’m going to be dubiously unwise, it should at least help someone out.”

“Indeed.”

He settled his weight back against the wall, and she let out a relieved breath. Her gut gurgled again. Or maybe her stomach was gurgling. She did feel hungry since she hadn’t eaten all of her sketchy gruel, but she wouldn’t have gone looking for more of that swill, even if she’d known where it was stored.

“What made you join the Alliance?” she asked since Dash wasn’t saying anything.

“Oh, it wasn’t any one thing. Just a lot of things over time. Seeing the empire bullying people. Taking men who couldn’t pay their taxes away from their families and throwing them in prison. Brutalizing people with Starseer genes even though their potential had never manifested and most of them didn’t know they carried the blood. Shooting protestors on college campuses for simply voicing their objections.”

McCall winced. She well remembered the Perun Arcade Massacre. It had been on all the news vids for weeks, and even someone as voluntarily oblivious to current events as she hadn’t missed it. Sometimes, it surprised her that the government allowed the media outlets to report its atrocities, but they were all owned by corporations rather than the empire, and she wagered the Alliance had sway over a couple of the major networks.

“I imagine crimes against Starseers would strike close to home,” she said.

“They do. And it’s kind of funny since I hated all things Starseer, including my half-brothers, when I left home. I’d been treated so poorly in the temple growing up. But I think that’s what made me want to stop criminals and protect people who couldn’t protect themselves.”

“That’s noble.”

Dash twitched a shoulder. “The pay wasn’t bad either. As an independent bounty hunter. Though sometimes competitors beat me to the target.”

He looked over at her, and it took McCall a moment to realize what he meant.

“I admit I’ve never thought of bounty hunters as competitors,” she said. “The agencies and corporations who hire me give me partial payment up front under the assumption that I’ll be the one to locate the mark. I suppose it doesn’t surprise me that they sometimes have a bounty out on the side, but they’re potentially paying two people then, because I don’t have to return that upfront fee. It’s in my standard contract.”

“I’m guessing they go to you when they’ve tried the bounty for a while and it didn’t work. There were a couple of times I was tracking someone down for months, and then you appeared on the job, and a week later, the person had been found—remember Dwarf Star Wang?—and apprehended, sometimes right before I got there.”

“I do remember him, yes. I’m sorry you were inconvenienced. Is that why you…”

“Why I wasn’t your biggest fan when we first came on the ship? Yes. As I said, I regret that and the choices I made. I’ll do my best to make sure your plan works tonight.”

Her plan. Such a grand notion for such a vague idea. Flood the grid. Easier said than done.

“Do you ever worry that by joining the Alliance you’ve made an irrevocable choice that could cost you your life and endanger your family?” she asked. It was easier to talk about something else than what lay ahead.

“My family lives in a Starseer temple so hidden from the outside system that I doubt even I could find it if I wanted to go home.”

“Ah. My sister works in Perun Central.”

Dash grimaced. “The core of the empire. I can see why you wouldn’t want to make a choice that would endanger her. Clearly, you’ll have to talk her into joining the Alliance, too, when you come on board. We can all hide out at the same base.”

McCall snorted. “Right.”

Her sister wasn’t any more political than McCall was. It wasn’t that they didn’t care at all; it just wasn’t a passion for either of them. Maybe things had changed for McKenzie since her surgery, but McCall was always so focused on what she loved doing that she struggled to make time for less appealing obligations, like being up on the empire’s latest atrocities and the Alliance’s struggles to stop them.

“As for the risk to my life,” Dash said after a thoughtful pause, “it was a concern, and this wasn’t something I jumped into lightly, but I felt like—I still feel like—I wasn’t doing anything that important with my life, and now I am. I can make a difference with the Alliance. And sometimes, you have to fight for something greater than yourself, you know?”

McCall wasn’t sure she did. Oh, she’d read about selfless sacrifice in all manner of novels, but she’d worked so hard to craft a life for herself and was finally reaping the rewards—or had been—that she couldn’t imagine giving it up to join the losing side. Maybe she didn’t have the selfless gene.

“And speaking of that,” Dash said, “it’s probably about time to start our breakout so we can get my Alliance brethren out of this pit. And ourselves too.”

Her gut writhed for a reason that had nothing to do with poor food. “Yes.”

10

They padded down the hallway leading from the sleep bay to the latrine, then kept going past it. They had no weapons, no backup, and no way to get through locked doors. They also weren’t sure where they were going. Storming the control room made perfect sense.

Dash shook his head and tried to reassure himself they could do this. McCall had enough doubts for the both of them, so he didn’t need to add his. It would have been nice to bring some of the Alliance people along to help subdue guards, but in addition to not wanting witnesses to any mind tricks he might try, Dash suspected he and McCall were the only prisoners who hadn’t been brainwashed to leave the guards alone.

They turned a bend, and he glanced at a camera observing from near the ceiling.

“How long do you think it’ll be before someone comes to thump us?” McCall whispered.

“Not long.” Dash hoped humans would be sent rather than androids or robots; he couldn’t affect the minds of those. He didn’t know if he could diddle the minds of belligerent guards charging at them, either, but he might be able to make them pause for a second or two. “Saint Alcyone is rumored to have used her telekinetic powers to hurl a company of elite soldiers off a mountain.”

McCall glanced at him. “We’re just going to tell them we got lost on the way to the lav, right?”

Dash snorted. “That’s not going to work.”

“What will? It’s my first prison break.”

As they approached the stairs, the pounding of boots on the cement treads reached their ears.

“We’re about to find out,” Dash whispered.

There was nowhere to hide. Dash sensed two men descending the stairs, large men with blazer rifles.

He stepped in front of McCall, lifting his arms to keep her back. The guards raced into view and seemed startled to see him standing there, hands spread.

He focused on one man’s mind, putting the notion into his head that he was about to miss a step. His target flinched, his rifle wavering as he glanced down. His buddy must have seen the movement because he faltered too. Dash tried to make the second man think the first was tripping, and his rifle was in danger of going off in his direction.

The discombobulation only lasted for a second, but it gave Dash an opportunity to get closer and spring into them, taking advantage. He managed to rip one man’s rifle free before he recovered. Dash tossed it over his shoulder, trusting McCall to get it, and that was all he had time to manage before the other man swung his rifle toward Dash.

Dash threw up a straight kick, catching the barrel before it fully pointed at him. The guard’s arms flew up, and crimson blazer bolts slammed into the cement ceiling. Dash punched him in the gut before he could jerk his rifle back down.

As pulverized chunks of cement rained down from above, the other guard wrapped his arms around Dash from behind. Dash threw his head back, catching him in the cheek. His assailant’s grip loosened, and Dash twisted out of his arms.

He glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye, McCall rushing up the stairs. She slammed the butt of her new blazer into one guard’s head hard enough to stagger the man, leaving Dash to focus on the other. He knocked his foe’s rifle aside as the man was about to fire again, then rushed in close, hammering punches at his sternum and gut. The rifle clattered to the steps as the guard struggled to defend himself. Dash threw an upper cut that caught him solidly in the chin.

The guard stumbled and fell backward onto the steps. Dash snatched up his rifle but hesitated, feeling guilty about clubbing a downed man. But he needed the guard unconscious or at least insensate until Dash had a chance to tie him up somehow.

“Beside you,” McCall said from behind him.

She leaned past him with a newly acquired stun gun in hand and fired at the downed man, the weapon’s white nimbus wrapping around him fully. His head clunked back on the stairs. She had already stunned the other guard.

“You’re not bad in a fight,” Dash observed.

Her mouth twisted in skepticism. “Clubbing someone when he isn’t looking, though it goes against my natural instincts, doesn’t take a lot of skill.”

“You could have missed and clubbed the wall. Or me.”

“It could still happen.” McCall offered him the rifle.

Dash waved the weapon he had already acquired. “Keep it. We’ll each have one.”

“I have the stun gun now—got it off that one’s belt. The battery pack reads fully charged.”

“Sometimes, a rifle is more useful.”

“Only if you want to kill someone, which I suggest we avoid doing, in case…” She shrugged.

She didn’t need to finish. If they were caught and had killed people during their escape attempt, they would go from hard-working prisoners with a life sentence to a lethal injection delivered that night.

“I’ll avoid shooting at vital targets.” Dash accepted the second rifle, though he felt ridiculous carrying one of the long weapons in each hand.

That didn’t keep him from striding up the stairs with determination. It wouldn’t take long before someone else noticed him and McCall on the loose.

“Let’s take the control room,” he added, “then I’ll come back and drag the unconscious guards into it. Or into a nice equipment closet.”

“Right behind you.” McCall stepped past the downed men, her stun gun in hand. She patted down the second guard but didn’t find a second stun gun.

“Glad to have you back there.”

Dash jogged up the long set of stairs to a landing and into a corridor. He came to a T-intersection and turned right, remembering the control room had looked out over the furnace room.

The sound of voices came from around a corner up ahead. Dash paused, debating if he truly wanted to leap out and start spraying blazer bolts. He turned toward McCall, lowering the rifles, and pointed to the stun gun.

She flipped it and handed it to him without a word.

“Thanks,” he mouthed, then handed her one rifle and kept the other.

She gripped it like a club rather than a blazer, and he flashed a quick grin.

As he advanced toward the corner, the voices stopped. Dash imagined them getting some alert from whoever monitored the cameras. He paused before poking his head around the corner and reached out with his mind, trying to touch theirs.

They stood at the end of the corridor in front of the closed door to the control room. Right away, he sensed their alertness. They had received a message that two of the prisoners were heading in their direction.

Dash could only attempt to manipulate one man’s mind at a time, so he picked the one who seemed more concerned, more ready to jerk his rifle up and fire down the corridor. Dash tried to make the man believe he heard a yell from inside the control room and that the door was opening behind him.

A startled oath drifted around the corner, and Dash sensed the man spinning toward the door. Hoping his comrade would also glance back, Dash leaned out. The men were about thirty feet away and already turning back toward him, realizing they had been fooled.

Dash fired twice, grimacing because the stun gun was a short-range weapon, and he doubted its bolts would knock them out from that far down the corridor. They whipped their rifles up, and Dash lunged back around the corner. Orange blazer bolts streaked past, slamming into the metal wall and ricocheting off.

McCall cursed and skittered back. Dash crouched low and leaned out to fire again.

One of the guards leaned against the wall, and the other had dropped to one knee. The stun bolts had hit them, just not with enough power to knock them out. Dash fired again, then jumped out and raced down the corridor toward the men, determined to get close enough to fully drop them.

But the second shots did the job. The men toppled to the floor.

Dash rounded up their rifles and found another stun gun. He handed the new one to McCall as she came up behind him, hoping they continued to only encounter people in twos. Even with his mind tricks, and McCall cheerfully clubbing people in the head, he doubted they could take down more than two at a time.

He stepped over the guards and to the control room door, splaying his fingers on its cool metal surface. He could sense a man inside, not very alert as he sat back in his chair and watched pornography on his netdisc. Dash grunted. They might have been able to engineer a systems failure without bothering with this room at all.

“Can we get in?” McCall whispered.

One of the guards moaned, and she pointed her stun gun at him. Dash hoped to tie them up as soon as he figured out a way to get inside.

He waved at the sensors on the control panel beside the door, just in case it wasn’t locked. Not surprisingly, nothing happened. He tried the palm print. Nothing.

“Can you reach his mind from here?” McCall asked. “Maybe you can trick him into thinking there’s someone at the door.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” He blushed, embarrassed he hadn’t thought of it.

“Assuming there aren’t camera displays in there that show us standing here,” McCall added.

“He’s looking at other kinds of displays.”

Dash rested a hand on the door again and concentrated on reaching the man. He wasn’t sure if there were monitors inside, but he tried to instill the idea that the operator had heard something in the corridor and ought to check on it. Personally. To add urgency, he also tried to suggest the man might be in trouble if something happened while he’d been looking at pornography.

It worked. He surged to his feet, grabbed a stun gun, and ran to the door.

“Watch out,” Dash whispered, “he’ll have a stun gun.”

“You have one too,” McCall whispered back. “And three rifles.”

“Right.” Dash raised the stun gun. The other weapons he slung over his shoulder on their straps.

The door opened, and Dash uttered a harsh, “Don’t,” as the man lifted his stun gun. Dash was aware of McCall, her weapon also pointed at the operator, standing at his side. He liked that. He’d never had a partner as a bounty hunter, and Axton certainly hadn’t filled that role in his more recent job. It was nice having someone he could rely on beside him.

The operator saw the downed guards and lowered his stun gun. Dash snatched it from his hand, then used it on him. As the man toppled, Dash ran over to the glass wall and peered down into the furnace room below. The lighting down there was poor, especially compared to the brightness inside the control room, and it was hard to see people. Eventually, he spotted several men shoveling in coal, and there was James. Good. Dash gave the bright suns gesture, hand to chest, fingers splayed, then, not certain that would be obvious at that distance, just waved.

When he turned back to the room, McCall was pulling one of the unconscious guards through the doorway.

“I’ll do that.” Dash jogged over. “You handle the computer stuff. Especially figuring out how to make that buzzer go off so the workers will shovel in more coal.”

“Got it.” She ran to the banks of monitors and panels full of levers, switches, gauges, and control pads.

The miasma of equipment daunted Dash, especially since the archaic system didn’t look like anything with a holodisplay or help files one could access for advice. Fortunately, McCall appeared less daunted. Her eyes were intense with focus as she scoured the area.

Trusting her to have more of a clue than he, Dash dragged the two guards inside, then ripped strips of material from their uniforms so he could tie them up. It would only take twenty or thirty minutes before their systems cleared the effects of the stuns.

While he was patting them down, he found a grenade in one guard’s utility belt. Standard issue or had the man known he might have to deal with trouble tonight?

Dash pocketed it, figuring he might have a need for it soon.

“Be right back,” he said and headed out to get the other two guards they had knocked out.

McCall, bent over the control panel and already tapping buttons, didn’t acknowledge him. As Dash raced back down the hall, he realized he had never seen her at work on a job. He could easily imagine her forgetting to eat or drink or sleep when engrossed in hunting down a felon.

Dash hoisted one guard over his shoulder, took him to the control room, and was on his way back to the stairs for a second when the murmur of whispered voices drifted to him from farther away. It sounded like more than two people this time. He almost left the man, thinking to run back and barricade the control room, but a familiar person in a green uniform ran into view. Marco. He spotted Dash, ducked back out of sight, then must have realized Dash wasn’t a guard because he came forward again.

“We’re ready to go for the uniforms as soon as the forcefields go out,” Marco whispered, then pointed over his shoulder.

Walters and Jannik leaned out from the shelter of doorways. Walters wore a pained expression and gripped his ribs, as if even skulking about bothered him, but he managed to flash a smile and wave.

A buzz echoed through the facility, the warning for the coal shovelers to dump more fuel into the fires.

“It should be soon.” Dash didn’t know if it would take minutes or hours for extra electricity to be made, so he hoped he was right.

“Some other prisoners have woken up and are milling around,” Marco added. “They may have caught wind of something.”

“Well, don’t tell them the plan.” Dash hoped nobody would take advantage and pick a fight. With luck, the other prisoners would distract the guards.

Dash waved a farewell and, not wanting to leave McCall alone for long, grabbed the last unconscious guard. As he strode back to the control room, the man thumping heavily over his shoulder, another buzz went off.

By all three sun gods of the trinity, maybe this would work.

Dash imagined prisoners had attempted to break out numerous times and that the guards were experienced at foiling them, so he didn’t want to get cocky envisioning their success—they still had to hope the forcefields would go down with a power outage—but this might be the first time some of the prisoners hadn’t been implanted with that impetus to avoid fighting the guards. Unless other Starseers had been dumped into this hole.

Probably not. Other Starseers had more mental powers to draw upon and wouldn’t likely have allowed themselves to end up in this situation.

Dash forced aside the surge of bitterness and ran into the control room. He glanced to the side, making sure nothing had happened to McCall, and dumped his guard next to the others. He shut the door, then dropped to his knees, tearing strips of clothing for bonds.

A soft click emanated from the door.

“I locked it,” McCall said when he glanced over. “There’ll be an override, I’m sure, but it should buy a few minutes if we’re besieged. I’ve got the buzzer going off periodically, and I shorted out the camera in this room. I’ve figured out how to shut down power in the facility, but it would be easy to flip back on that way, so I’m continuing with my original plan. I’ve also jammed an attempt from upstairs to communicate with us.”

“I’ve been gone for a whole five minutes, and that’s all you’ve managed to do? Really?”

McCall frowned uncertainly at him before her forehead smoothed.

“Sorry, it was sarcasm,” Dash said, realizing she hadn’t gotten his joke right away. “You’re actually quite amazing.”

He had the urge to follow the words with a quick kiss—or maybe not that quick of one—but reminded himself she thought kissing was gross. She also hadn’t shown any romantic interest in him. Unfortunately.

“Oh,” McCall said in response to his compliment. Nothing more.

He sensed that he’d flustered her. Damn, that hadn’t been his intent.

She pointed at a bank of monitors to one side. “You can watch the video feeds and let me know if trouble heads our way. They know something’s up, but I’m hoping they haven’t quite figured out what yet.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” Dash finished tying the guards and strode to the monitors.

Another buzz blasted into the furnace room, and he imagined the workers down there waving their shovels in irritation. Would those buzzes echo all the way up to the higher levels? Probably. That balcony was open to the furnace room below.

Dash spotted movement on one of the monitors, then snorted. Marco, Walters, and Jannik were skulking through the corridors, pausing, then running, then pausing again and running. As if they were in some medieval castle, darting from shadow to shadow between flickering wall sconces.

A ring came from the control panel near McCall. She pressed a button to silence it as she peered at a display.

“Trouble?” Dash asked.

“Someone is paying attention downstream. They’ve noticed that more electricity than is required for this hour of the night is pouring into the system.”

“And you’re not answering?”

“Only by sending even more power into the grid.” McCall tapped a couple of buttons, then looked toward a live map that Dash couldn’t begin to decipher, other than it seemed to show a network between the domed cities with flashing lights coming on all around them.

“That’s one way of answering, I suppose.” He glanced back at his monitors, then cursed.

A bunch of guards were gathering at the base of the stairs he and McCall had come up. Preparing to storm the control room, he wagered.

On another display, he saw his green-clad allies around a corner from two guards striding in their direction.

Dash grimaced. The Alliance people outnumbered the guards three to two, but they would have those brain stamps to ensure they went along with anything the guards said. They wouldn’t be able to bring themselves to attack.

“Shit, is there any way I can do something to those guards from here?” Dash wished he could use telepathy through a video monitor. “Maybe some androids I can send leaping out of a closet to attack them? Or a mustard gas I can pump through the ventilation system that would leave the guards gagging and puking?” Of course, that would have his people gagging and puking, too, and he needed them to reach the supply room and retrieve survival equipment. “Make that a sedative gas,” he amended, though that would still give their allies a problem.

McCall arched her eyebrows at him. “You read too many space-station thrillers.” She looked toward a map of the facility with a panel of labeled switches under it, then flipped one.

The lights went out in the corridors with the Alliance men and the guards.

Dash grunted. “That might not save them.”

“Sorry, I can’t make mustard gas ooze out of the walls.” Another buzz sounded, and McCall returned to monitoring the grid map of the domes.

A red light flashed on the panel next to her. She nodded, as if all was going according to plan.

Dash hoped so. He looked back to the monitors, but he couldn’t see what was happening in the area where McCall had turned out the lights—he hoped his people were sucking in their stomachs and pressing their backs to the walls as the guards walked past in the dark.

On the display that showed the other guards gathering, Dash noticed two more had joined the group, bringing the total to ten. Those two had brought plastorches.

“I think they know we’ve locked ourselves in here and are planning to force their way in,” Dash said.

“Yeah, the control-room camera is the only one I could tinker with from here.” She pointed to a corner near the ceiling. The camera’s glass lens had been shattered, the housing cut open, and wires dangled free.

“You have a simple but effective style,” Dash said. “I approve.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Dash looked at the labels on the panel by the monitors and found the one that matched up to the bottom of the stairs and the gathering guards. He flicked the switch to turn the lights out on them. It was worth a shot.

McCall quirked an eyebrow but did not comment. She was frowning at lines scrolling past on yet another display. Dash had seen space-base launch facilities with fewer displays and controls than this place.

A flashlight beam appeared on the darkened monitor, followed by three more. These guards were better prepared than the others. They marched up the stairs and would soon reach the control room.

“You’re sure there’s no mustard gas we can fling at them?” Dash asked.

“Sorry.” McCall glanced at the monitor. “Want to look around in here and see if there are flashlights we can use when the power goes out? Did any of those guards have netdiscs?”

“I’ll check.”

Another buzz sounded.

Angry shouts drifted up from below, audible through the glass wall.

A clank sounded at the door. Dash didn’t have to look at the monitors to know the guards were right outside. McCall had locked it, but if they went straight to cutting a hole through it with the torch, it wouldn’t take them long to get in.

Someone knocked.

McCall grunted. “They expect us to answer?”

“Maybe they think we’ll believe it’s a food delivery service.” Dash found the netdisc the control-room operator had been using to entertain himself. The naked couple in the pornographic holodisplay popped up. He hastily swiped it aside and located the flashlight application. He noted that there was no connection to any satellites for sys-net access. Not surprising.

A few scrapes and thunks sounded at the door. The guards had already given up on knocking.

“We’re about there,” McCall said. “The breakers in our facility and downstream should start tripping soon.”

“How long until they’ll be able to get power back on in here once it goes out?”

“Not long if they can get into this room. I did see that there’s a backup generator. It requires someone to manually start it up and switch the critical systems over to it. I tried to find a way to deny access, but I couldn’t figure anything out. Sorry.” She glanced back at him. “My specialty is creating search algorithms, not working with hardware.”

“You’re doing great. I’m the one who’s about to fall short.” Dash placed the netdisc beside her, its flashlight beam shining, and stood to face the door with a stun gun in one hand and a rifle in the other. “I don’t think I can keep those guards from getting in. They’ll probably hurl in stun grenades once they cut a hole.”

Or regular grenades, he thought grimly. If one guard had carried such a weapon, others likely would have them too.

But, no, they wouldn’t want to blow up their control room. They shouldn’t hurl explosives through the doorway. But stun grenades would effectively end this prison breakout, at least for Dash and McCall.

“I don’t think they’re going to have time to get us.” She tapped her fingers on the panel. “We do need something to cut with. Have you seen a toolbox?” She looked over and saw his ready stance in front of the door. “Never mind. I’ll look.”

She jogged over to cubbies and a storage locker that looked more like a place for workers to store their lunches and jackets than a receptacle for toolboxes.

“What do you need to cut?” Dash grimaced as the soft whine of the plastorch emanated through the door. “And which controls over there deal with the generator?”

“A hole in the glass wall so we can get out that way.” She glanced curiously at him, then pointed. “The generator controls are on that panel over there.”

Dash noted that, an idea forming in his mind, but his gaze was drawn to the glass wall. “It’s thirty feet down to the floor.”

“There’s a big furnace and boiler below us—I was looking at it earlier. I think we can lower ourselves down to the boiler, then clamber down the side of it to the floor without a rope.”

Dash was somewhat bemused that she’d been planning this from the moment they’d walked into the facility. Bemused but pleased.

“I’ll—”

An alarm wailed, cutting him off. The lights went out, including every monitor and indicator on the control panel. Everything beyond the glass wall went dark too.

Someone’s curses emanated through the door.

“That’s it,” McCall said. “I’m guessing it’ll take a half hour for them to get the main power back on once they get in here but a lot less time to fire up the backup generator.”

“They’re still cutting through the door. I can hear the plastorch.”

“I didn’t get a chance to find us a torch.”

“Allow me.” Dash turned from the door and toward the glass wall, slinging a rifle off his shoulder. “Stand over here behind me.”

She found her way over to him, patting his side, then stepped back. Not sure how thick that glass would be, Dash tapped his trigger once instead of trying a sustained blast. He angled it so his bolt wouldn’t ricochet back, just in case it was a lot thicker than he expected—or made from impenetrable Glastica.

The orange bolt briefly lit up the control room as it burned a small hole, but the thick glass did not shatter. He shifted to sustained firing, as if he were using a plastorch instead of a rifle, and carefully cut a hole large enough for them to escape through. Fortunately, he made faster progress than the guards at the door, though from the smell of melting metal, Dash knew they were also progressing.

The circle of glass fell outward, and he winced as it struck something—the boiler McCall had mentioned—and shattered. Loudly.

Alarmed shouts came up from below, reminding him that dozens of workers were in the furnace room. He thought of the thug who’d picked a fight with him in the bay and hoped nobody would impede them.

“The new exit, my lady,” Dash said, slinging the rifle over his shoulder again.

McCall moved to the glass wall and paused, probably testing the edge of the hole to see how hot it was. Dash found he could make out more than expected once his eyes adjusted to the dark. A couple of furnace doors were open down below, the fires within providing a flickering orange light.

Several of the workers were visible, staring up at them. They weren’t the Alliance men who were supposed to be out there. Where had James gone?

“I’ll go ahead of you,” Dash said, worried their fellow prisoners down there would impede them rather than help, “but let me do something first.”

He pulled out the grenade and thumbed the top open. A tiny display offered an option for instant detonation or a countdown of up to fifteen minutes.

Dash tapped in the maximum time and, hoping he wouldn’t end up bringing down the entire facility on their heads, placed it where he thought it would help the most.

11

McCall clambered slowly down from the hole in the glass wall, barely able to see the boiler below or any handholds in the dark. She had the operator’s netdisc with the flashlight program, but she needed both hands for climbing.

Her hand slipped, and she smashed her knuckles on some metal protrusion. She bit back a string of curse words that wanted to escape. Since this had been her idea, she shouldn’t complain.

A soft, “Oomph,” sounded, Dash jumping the last few feet and landing on the floor.

McCall glimpsed his shadowy form twenty feet below. She wasn’t ready to jump yet.

As she groped for a lower handhold, the grumbles of nearby men floated up to her.

“Who is that? He’s got rifles.”

“…take them, break out.”

“…against forcefields?”

“Power’s out. Forcefields might be too.”

McCall found a handhold and descended a couple of feet. Her boot touched the boiler and she angled her route so she could step onto its rounded top. Rivets in the metal helped her find a place she could settle her weight while she figured out how to get the rest of the way down.

A grinding noise came from the control room up above. Were the guards through the door yet? McCall hoped none of them knew how to turn on the backup generator and that they would have to wait until the operator woke from his stun. But she wouldn’t bet on it.

“That’s the law enforcer,” someone below said loudly.

“Not to rush you, McCall,” Dash whispered up, “but we’re going to have a problem if we stick around.”

“Coming.” She dropped to her belly and slithered over the side of the boiler. How far from the floor was she now? Could she risk dropping off? If she broke her ankle, she doubted those Alliance people would carry her more than a hundred miles. Dash might try, but that would be an awful burden to put on him.

A blazer bolt streaked through the air, and McCall almost lost her grip on the boiler.

“Stay back,” Dash growled, his voice cold. “You want to escape, go right ahead. But you’re not getting my weapons.”

“You got three rifles. What do you need them all for?”

“Friends.”

“Other law enforcers?”

“Back off.”

Clothing rustled and boots hammered the floor. Another weapon fired—this was the whine of a stun gun.

McCall couldn’t see the floor in the dim lighting, but she made herself let go. Her heart tried to fling itself into her throat when she dropped farther than expected.

She landed behind Dash—hard. Pain erupted from the soles of her feet, and she fell in an awkward roll. Her shoulder clunked against the bottom of the boiler as Dash sprang away, firing the stun gun.

Someone roared, and McCall glimpsed a shovel swinging toward Dash’s head. Three people were already on the floor unconscious, but every worker out there had decided to attack him. Where were their Alliance allies?

Ignoring the twinges of pain, McCall scrambled to her feet and ran to the end of the boiler as she pulled out her own stun gun. In the poor light, their attackers were indistinct blurs of shadow, but Dash kept firing, the muzzle of his stun gun flashing white with each shot. Sometimes he hit men, and sometimes he did not.

McCall fired her own stun gun at anyone far enough from Dash that she didn’t risk hitting him.

A thud sounded, and she envisioned a shovel hitting him in the head.

“Dash?” She stepped forward.

“I’m fine,” he barked over his shoulder, firing again. “Stay back there behind cover.”

Another thud sounded, and someone with a shovel moved in front of the light from a furnace. Was that one of the Alliance men? Maybe they had an ally, after all.

McCall and Dash dropped three more men with their stun guns, and the furnace room grew quiet.

“James?” Dash asked the only other figure still standing.

“Yup.” The man waved his shovel. “That’s me. Handsome and charming like nobody else here. Want to follow me? I know the way to where Marco and the others should be getting supplies.” He looked toward McCall. “Glad you got the power off. How long will it be out?”

A clank and a shout came from the control room above them.

“Not long,” McCall admitted glumly.

A shadow moved behind the glass wall, and she glimpsed flashlights inside the room.

“Hurry. The sooner we get out, the sooner we can show your handsome charm to the critters on the tundra out there.” Dash waved for the Alliance man to lead the way.

“Now doesn’t that sound appealing?” James ran toward an exit.

McCall chased after him at full speed, with Dash matching her pace. They were running out of time, and they had barely started.

“Do you have a flashlight?” James asked after stumbling over a stunned man on the floor.

“Here.” McCall hated giving up the netdisc, but she handed it to Dash, who gave it to their new leader.

Fortunately, the corridors were empty. They heard shouts on the levels above them, but James knew the facility well and seemed to be picking a circuitous route. He led them to an access shaft with a ladder leading up that would bypass the elevator, but he paused before starting up it.

“There’s usually a forcefield to keep us from going up there.” James shined the flashlight into the darkness. “Any way to tell if it’s up?”

“It shouldn’t be right now,” McCall said, “but it’s not going to take them long to get the generator up, at which point, all the forcefields could come back on.”

“In other words, hurry up.” Dash pointed his stun gun up the shaft. “We’ll catch you if you get zapped and fall.”

James grimaced, and McCall wondered if more than zapping happened to those who touched a forcefield here.

“Never mind. I’ll go.” Dash pocketed his stun gun, jumped, and pulled himself up the rungs.

James shined the flashlight up into the shaft. McCall watched Dash and held her breath. She didn’t think the forcefields could be up, but what if she was wrong? What if they ran on a different system from the lights?

“Almost to the top,” Dash called down.

Footfalls sounded in the corridor they had just come down.

James cursed. “Here, let me give you a boost. McCall, was it?”

“Yeah.” McCall stuffed her stun gun into her pocket, glad the scratchy uniforms had pockets.

“That’s a weird name.” He knelt and made a basket with his hands.

“My mother picked it during her historical-romance-novel reading phase.” McCall stuck her shoe into his grip. “Apparently, Old Earth Scottish heroes were popular for a while. She named my sister McKenzie.”

James boosted her up so she could reach the rungs. “That’s a pretty name.”

“McCall is weird, and McKenzie is pretty?” She clambered up the shaft after Dash. “That figures.”

James didn’t respond. The footfalls had grown much louder. Guards were definitely heading their way.

McCall hurried up the rungs, afraid James wouldn’t have time to jump up before they appeared. It was dark in the shaft above, so she couldn’t tell if Dash had made it to an exit. At least she hadn’t heard any zaps.

“Here,” Dash whispered from her side, and she realized she had reached a spot to get off the ladder.

Her knuckles hit cement above her. They couldn’t climb any higher.

As Dash helped her off the ladder and onto a solid floor, blazer fired squealed below. James screamed in pain.

McCall gasped and stuck her head back into the ladder well.

James had made it part way up the ladder, but crimson and orange bolts slammed into his lower body. He lost his grip on the rungs and tumbled back down to the floor.

McCall yanked out her stun gun as more bolts hammered into his body, but there was nobody in sight she could shoot.

“Dash,” she blurted, not sure what she wanted him to do.

Jump back down and help? He would only be shot too.

Dash pulled her back and leaned forward, reaching for the rungs.

Then the lights turned on. A bzzzt of energy came from the ladder well, and motes sparkled briefly in the air as a forcefield stretched across the shaft.

“Damn it.” Dash slammed his fist against his thigh.

McCall leaned forward and glimpsed James writhing in pain, scorch marks all over his body, before Dash grabbed her and pulled her away.

“Come,” he whispered. “Before they see us.”

Horrified numbness filled her, but she let him haul her down a drab gray corridor identical to others they had run through. Somehow, she hadn’t grasped that this prison break—this whole prison situation—could turn deadly. Maybe because all she ever did was find criminals from the safety of her ship; she didn’t go down and start firefights with them. She never had to deal with the realities of killing and death in person.

Dash turned and jogged toward an open door, his stun gun firmly in his grip.

Though she struggled with an overwhelming sense of defeat—how were they going to get past more forcefields now that the power was back on?—she made herself pull out her stun gun to help him if he needed it.

“It’s the Alliance boys,” Dash whispered, relief in his voice. “Marco, it’s us.”

Dash poked his head into the open doorway, then immediately backed out. Marco, Walters, and Jannik pushed out a laundry cart full of fur-lined parkas, leggings, boots, and hats. A couple of boxes of ration bars lay on top of the pile, along with a couple of the compasses Dash had asked for. McCall supposed finding water outside on the snow-covered tundra wouldn’t be a problem.

“Look at everything we got,” Walters blurted, his eyes shining.

“Good work.” Dash hesitated. “James didn’t make it. We have to hope the others are waiting at the stairs and haven’t run into trouble too.”

The gleam vanished from Walters’ eyes, and Marco and Jannik swore.

“Sorry,” Dash said. “Can you lead us out?”

“I can,” Marco said, “but do you have a way to deal with the forcefield at the stairs?” He glanced upward at the lights, then looked dubiously at the rifles Dash had collected.

“We may have to come up with something creative when we get there,” Dash said.

“Oh.” Marco looked at his Alliance buddies, their expressions all equally concerned.

McCall glanced into the supply room, wondering if something inside might help. All she saw were racks of winter clothing and weapons, the latter in a vault and protected by a forcefield. She didn’t see a way to turn it off. She couldn’t help but feel herself a failure for not coming up with a way to take that generator offline.

She and Dash let the men with the cart lead, and they set a fast pace. Shouts continued to echo through the facility, some not far off, and McCall feared they would have to engage in another firefight to even reach the forcefield.

She glanced at Dash. “How long until that grenade you set goes off?”

He grunted. “You don’t miss much, do you?”

“It’s hard to miss a lit display in a pitch black room. But I didn’t see where you put it. Just in the control room somewhere?”

“Under the—”

“There are the stairs,” one of the men blurted. “We’re almost out and—ack!” He ducked down behind his cart.

“Relax,” a woman said, one of five people stepping into view at the end of the corridor. It was Rose and the rest of the Alliance team. “It’s just us, but we have a problem.”

Rose looked toward McCall, and she couldn’t keep from wincing.

“I know, the forcefield,” McCall said. “They were down when the power was out, but they got a generator online, and it—”

A distant boom sounded, and the cement floor trembled. The lights flickered several times, then went out.

“Huh,” Dash said.

“Where exactly did you put that grenade?” McCall asked.

“In a cabinet under that panel for the generator controls that you pointed to.”

“Ah. Good thinking.”

“It happens every now and then,” Dash said. “Mostly by accident.”

“The forcefield is down,” someone said from the darkness ahead. “Get this cart past it and up the stairs. Now, move. Go, go.”

“Never time to savor your victories,” Dash said.

McCall thought of the man she’d seen gunned down and didn’t know if she could consider this a victory.

* * *

As soon as McCall stepped out of the warm underground facility and onto the icy landing pad, she wanted to turn around and go back in. The snow had stopped, but frigid air blasted her, freezing the cilia in her nostrils and all the way down to her lungs. The chill burrowed right through the cold-weather clothing she and the others had donned on the stairs. Would the gear be sufficient for a days-long trek in these temperatures?

The sky was clear, the stars as brilliant and abundant as if they were looking out the Star Surfer’s porthole. McCall would much rather have been aboard her ship and admiring them from there. Specifically, from the sauna in her lavatory. It had a lovely porthole and was deliciously hot.

She peered around the landing pad, relieved when she didn’t see Scipio’s broken form lying in the snow. Nor did she see any frozen dog bodies. That didn’t necessarily mean he and Junkyard were safe, but at least Axton hadn’t hurled them out a hatch and flown off on his own.

He wasn’t a pilot, Dash had said. She hoped that proved true and that he had needed Scipio. And that Scipio had found ways to delay or even defeat him. It would be convenient if her ship was in orbit overhead right now, Scipio in NavCom, waiting for her to find a way to make contact.

“Let’s march,” Rose said, sounding more like a military commander than a professor. “They’ll figure out how to get the lights on before long. We need to get long gone by then. Who’s got the compass?”

“Here, ma’am.” Marco waved his mittened hand.

Next to him, Walters, now bundled in a parka and snow pants, leaned over, gripping his knees with gloved hands. He straightened as soon as he noticed people looking in his direction. Nobody said anything, but McCall wondered if his injuries would cause trouble for the group on the march.

“The closest city is in Dome Seven,” Rose reminded everyone, “and it’s across the tundra and over the mountains. Lead the way, Marco.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Dome Seven doesn’t have a space port, does it?” someone asked. “We’ll have to buy a train ticket to another dome?”

“That’s right,” Rose said. “We’ll either sneak aboard or send a message so someone can come pick us up.” She waved toward the starry sky.

“That should be fun when we have no money and we’re wanted felons.”

“We’ll worry about it later, when we’re warm.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Marco said.

McCall let the Alliance people go first. With her netdisc and a satellite link, she would have no trouble finding her way through the wilderness, but she had doubts about her abilities with low-tech survival gear.

McCall wasn’t upset when the leaders set off at a jog, boots crunching through a thin layer of windswept snow. They needed to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. On the open tundra, all it would take was someone in a low-flying shuttle to spot them. They could only hope the prison didn’t possess such craft and would have to call in people from elsewhere on the moon to hunt for the escapees.

Had only she and Dash escaped, McCall doubted the prison overseers would have bothered—they might have simply trusted the cold or predators to get them—but with a whole group, including an important Alliance leader, McCall expected pursuit.

“Here.” Dash, striding along at her side, pressed something into her hand.

She could barely feel it through the thick padding of her oversized glove. “What is it?”

“A hand warmer. We may only have a few rifles and three stun guns, but Marco grabbed a box of these. And we’ve got enough ration bars for a few days, assuming nobody gorges themselves.”

“Do they have vitamins and useful nutrients?”

“The hand warmers?”

McCall elbowed him. She couldn’t see his grin through his face mask, but she knew it was there.

“I’m imagining dehydrated rectangles of the same gruel they served us inside,” she admitted.

“You’re a bit of a pessimist, aren’t you?”

“You just now noticed?”

“We escaped from a secure imperial prison,” Dash said. “You should be ecstatic. And optimistic about our prospects to win at the game of survival.”

An eerie howl drifted across the frozen tundra.

“Are you sure optimism is called for?” McCall asked.

When she had heard that same howl from the landing pad with the safety of her ship right behind her, she hadn’t worried about it. Now, she worried.

“We have rifles,” Dash said. “I’m sure blazer bolts will fry the wildlife sufficiently.”

“Maybe.” McCall envisioned a pack of fanged predators overrunning them, and the rifles not taking them down quickly enough. She would have preferred firearms with bullets—those things made enough noise to scare animals away. Some of the border worlds used such weapons exclusively since they were easier to manufacture with limited resources than energy-based weapons, and BlazTech didn’t have facilities out past Aldrin. Too bad this place apparently got imperial deliveries of modern weapons. She imagined their dead bodies torn apart on the tundra, with the blazers lying uselessly on the white ground.

Dash glanced at her. “You are pessimistic.”

“You’re not poking into my thoughts, are you?” she asked, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t overhear.

“I hardly need to. They’re oozing out of your mind like pus—serum—from a blister.”

“You’re learning.”

“Yes, I’m a good boy. I can be taught new words.” He slapped her on the back and grinned again, his eyes, the only things visible behind that mask, crinkling at the corners. But his humor faltered as he lowered his arm. “Sorry, I forgot about the touching.”

“It’s all right.” She hadn’t even been thinking about her aversions—with all the layers of clothing, it wasn’t as if that had been intrusive or intimate. “That wasn’t smothering like a hug.”

“So, kisses are gross and hugs are smothering?”

“Just… from most people. In most circumstances.” She flailed as she slipped on ice and shook her head. She didn’t think she could manage to explain her feelings in this environment.

Another howl drifted across the tundra, and this time, it was answered by a second one.

Especially in this environment.

“I’d be curious to hear sometime if there are people and circumstances that you find appealing,” Dash said. “Or at least not unappealing.”

More howls started up. It reminded her of the Old Earth wolves calling to each other in their enclosure at the Perun Central zoo. She had a feeling any creatures the scientists had engineered to make the surface inhospitable to escaped prisoners were far more inimical than wolves.

“If we don’t get eaten by predators, I’ll tell you,” she muttered.

“Oh? Promise?”

“I…” It had been sarcasm, not a serious offer. She hadn’t even expected him to hear it. “I guess,” she said, then promptly wondered why she had agreed. She didn’t like talking about herself, especially when it came to things that made her seem odd.

“Such enthusiasm. I’m going to reward you with a ration bar.” Dash pulled one out of his pocket and handed it to her.

It was too dark to read labels, but she recognized the brand from its silver and black wrapper. It was a brand she avoided because it was full of sugar and a bunch of other ingredients that made her gut unhappy. Surviving on remote planets was for people with heartier gastrointestinal systems. She much preferred her well-stocked refrigerator and cupboards on the Surfer.

“Thank you,” she made herself say and stuffed it in her pocket. At least it would taste more appealing than gruel.

“How’d you get past the guards?” Walters asked, startling her.

McCall hadn’t noticed him falling back to join them. Or maybe it was more that he was having difficulty with the pace the others had set. She couldn’t see his face behind the snow mask he wore, but his eyes were squinted with pain.

“What?” Dash asked.

“You can’t attack the guards. I know. I tried, and my body worked against me. I wanted to punch them, but my brain couldn’t make my arm do it.” Walters tilted his head. “How’d you attack them?”

McCall glanced at Dash. Since she was a horrible liar, she decided to leave this to him. She doubted it would work to suggest there simply hadn’t been any guards to fight along their route. Who would believe that?

“With fists and kicks.” Dash shrugged. “I know you said something about brainwashing, but they didn’t do anything to us. Maybe we were too new?”

“Oh, that’s weird. They came out with a doctor my first day and hooked me up to this machine and stabbed a needle through my skull.” Even with all the cold-weather clothing bundling him, Walters’ shudder was visible.

McCall understood the feeling.

“Huh,” Dash said. “Guess we got lucky.”

Walters stared at him. Not believing him? McCall couldn’t tell. She wouldn’t have guessed the young man would be the perceptive type, but it was possible he was intelligent under his enthusiastic blather.

The howls grew louder. McCall glimpsed movement out on the tundra, and she forgot all about Walters.

Frost Moon 3’s frosty giant of a planet wasn’t visible in the sky, nor were the other two moons that orbited it, but the pale blue light of the nearby Ellipsoid Nebula provided some illumination. Enough to see a dark creature moving over the white ground. Make that dark creatures.

The leaders slowed down, making sure the group was together.

“Do we want to stop?” the mechanic, Jae-yoon, asked, waving his rifle. “Make a stand?”

“Not particularly.” Rose looked around, the fur lining of her parka hiding her face. “Out here in the open wouldn’t be a good place.”

“Can someone give me a rifle?” Walters asked.

Nobody answered him or offered him one. There weren’t enough to go around. McCall had the stun gun she and Dash had taken from the guards.

“I think we’ll have to get to those mountains to have a chance at finding a cave or any kind of cover,” Jae-yoon said.

“Those mountains forty miles away?” someone else asked.

McCall thought his name was Aleksei. The introductions at their little meeting had been a blur to her, but he had a guttural Sarkian accent that made him distinct.

“Those are the ones,” Rose said with grim determination.

The group marched along as people talked, but the black and gray animals out there drifted closer. McCall could not imagine them waiting two days, or however long it would take to trek forty miles, to attack.

It didn’t even take them two minutes. As a team, two shaggy animals turned and loped toward their group.

“Incoming,” Dash barked. “Stand back to back.”

He touched McCall, and she put her back to his, letting the other people work out their positions in the formation. She couldn’t see the creatures without craning her neck to peer past Dash’s arm, but they soon split up and circled the group. After that, she had no trouble seeing them.

The four-legged furry animals had long whip-like tails at odds with their hulking bodies and broad heads and snouts. They looked vaguely like Old Earth bears, but they moved with the agility of panthers as they bounded about, nostrils twitching in the air.

One growled and crouched to spring at the group.

“Fire,” Dash barked.

His rifle squealed faintly as orange blazer bolts shot out.

McCall, focused on a leering creature with black eyes in front of her, did not see if his bolts hit. She assumed they did, since the animals provided large targets, but she didn’t hear anything cry out in pain.

The hulking creature rushed toward her, its massive paws churning up snow. Her hands shook, but she kept her calm enough to aim and fire. Her stun gun flashed, the white nimbus crackling as it surrounded the creature.

It didn’t go down.

“Look out,” she blurted and dove to the side as the animal kept coming.

She fired again before she hit the ground, and she witnessed the stun bolt striking, but again, the energy did nothing to halt the creature. Dash had started to move at her warning but not quickly enough. The creature clipped him in the back of the shoulder, and they both tumbled to the ground, the massive creature almost burying him.

Feeling she had betrayed him by not properly guarding his back, McCall scrambled to her feet to help. But how?

Dash tried to shove the creature off as its jaws dove for his shoulder. It was too big, too heavy. Even with his strength, he couldn’t budge it.

McCall wanted to fire, but her stun gun hadn’t done a thing. Worse, she risked hitting Dash and knocking him out.

Jae-yoon dropped to one knee and fired a rifle, but he could only get off one shot because another one of the animals charged straight at the group. Someone else’s rifle skidded across the snow, knocked aside by one of the creatures. Walters ran for it. Those without weapons screamed and waved and jumped up and down, but it did nothing.

Aleksei rushed forward and tried to haul the creature off Dash. It didn’t budge.

“They’re impervious to our fire,” Rose shouted. “We have to try something else!”

Dash roared in pain and lost his rifle.

McCall rushed in and kicked the beast in the side. It was like kicking steel rather than fur and flesh. What the hells?

She spotted scorch marks in its dark fur where someone had hit it with a rifle and a flap of skin hung free. As Dash maneuvered under the creature, trying to keep its maw from closing around his neck, McCall snatched at that flap and pulled as hard as she could. A huge piece of hide ripped free, and she stumbled back, scarcely believing the animal did not roar in pain.

But the reason why clicked in her mind even before she saw exposed circuitry under the piece she’d torn free.

“They’re robots,” she yelled over someone’s fire. “Try a sustained blast!”

Dash got his knees up to his chest, planted his feet against the creature’s underbelly, and thrust upward. This time, he managed to kick it off him for long enough to roll to the side and snatch up his rifle.

He started the sustained blast McCall had suggested, but the creature rushed him, and he had to dive to the side again to evade it. Claws raked the air, almost catching him.

One of the Alliance people screamed. The two other creatures kept harrying them. Rifles fired, but nobody could do enough damage to stop their robotic assailants.

McCall looked down at her stun gun, wishing she had the one that she and Scipio had modified. They’d taken out the insides and packed explosives into the casing. But maybe she could make this one explode. The typical battery pack contained enough energy to detonate if heated sufficiently. Could that work?

She yanked off her gloves and opened the stun gun’s case, her already chilled fingers soon growing numb and clumsy from direct contact with the cold air. The job would have been hard enough without tools, and she struggled to disassemble it. Finally, the case fell free, and she yanked out the battery pack.

“Dash,” she yelled, hefting it. “Fire at this when I throw it.”

He was alternating between dodging the creature and shooting at it whenever he got a chance, and he barely glanced over at her. Had he heard? Did he understand?

“Got it,” he barked. “Ready!”

McCall waited until she couldn’t possibly miss, then threw the battery pack at his four-legged attacker. It was an inch from striking the robot’s furred hide when Dash fired. With impeccable aim, his blazer bolt struck the battery.

It exploded as McCall had envisioned. Except with even more power. White light flashed, and the shockwave caught her, hurling her onto her ass in the snow.

“Dash!” she cried.

He had been closer to the creature—to the explosion. McCall blinked furiously, willing the white stars dancing in her vision to go away.

“I’m all right,” he called from the ground and rolled to his feet. “We got it!”

When McCall’s vision cleared, she spotted something grayish-black on the snow in front of her. A piece of the creature. More small pieces were scattered about, but the majority of the robot lay crumpled and warped in a heap, smoke wafting from melted mechanical innards.

“Good job,” Dash called to McCall before running to help the others.

Two more of the creatures were attacking, and one of the men lay on the ground, not moving. If the robot animals knew that one of their cohorts had been destroyed, they didn’t show signs of caring. They were probably programmed to kill escaped prisoners and nothing else.

“Who’s got the other stun guns?” Dash yelled.

Rose waved one, and someone else pointed to the fallen man.

“McCall?” Dash also pointed at the fallen man but only for a second. He dropped to one knee with his blazer rifle and attempted a prolonged blast at a creature rushing toward Rose.

Realizing what they wanted, McCall ran to the crumpled man on the ground. Her gut twisted as she realized the person might be dead.

Yes, as soon as she glimpsed his body—it was Marco—and the way his eyes were frozen open, blood spattering the snow all around him, she knew they had lost him. Dash was fortunate he hadn’t been killed when he’d been under that creature.

With a hand so numb she could barely feel it—damn, she should have put her glove back on—McCall made herself dig into Marco’s pockets. Someone had believed he had a stun gun. She kept from looking at his face, not wanting to see those dead eyes.

A scream sounded as Dash cried, “Stay in front of her, Jae-yoon!”

Walters fired at one of the robot creatures, holding the trigger down, the crimson beam burning into its head. Smoke billowed from its snout and one side of its furred face. The other robot was springing around, evading Dash’s attempts at sustained fire.

Finally, McCall’s frozen fingers clunked against the metal and plastic of a stun gun. She yanked it out of Marco’s pocket and had to use her teeth to pry the casing open. Her fingers couldn’t manage it.

“Got it,” she yelled, jumping up.

“Here.” Dash fired at the creature harrying Rose and Jae-yoon.

Walters’ robot animal pitched to the snow, gaping holes where its black eyes had been. The young man had good aim. The creature’s CPU or another critical component must have been in its skull.

“I killed one,” Walters yelled, waving his rifle in triumph.

McCall ran and threw the battery pack at the remaining problem. The creature spun and jumped in another direction, accidentally or intentionally avoiding it.

“Wait,” McCall cried, afraid Dash would blow it up too far away.

But he saw the problem on his own. He sprinted in, snatched the battery pack from the snow, then threw it at the creature’s head as it ran toward him. He fired an instant later, and the pack blew up in its face.

This time, McCall squinted and looked away before being blinded. The boom still rattled her eardrums, but she didn’t care. So long as it worked.

When she looked back, she saw that the creature’s head had been blown off, and the rest of its body was in pieces. Thank the suns.

In the aftermath of the battle, the tundra fell silent, nothing but an eerie wind scraping across the raw night. McCall didn’t hear any more howls in the distance. Odd that these robots had been programmed with such verisimilitude. Perhaps the howls were meant to act as a warning as well as to scare the escapees, giving them a reason to change their minds and run back to the prison.

“Check Marco, please,” Rose said, her voice impressively calm.

McCall knew there was no point but didn’t say anything as Jae-yoon limped over to kneel by the dead man.

After scanning the horizon for more threats, Dash lowered his rifle and ran to McCall’s side. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her against him.

“That was good thinking out there,” he said, then lowered his voice to whisper, “Are you all right?”

Forgetting any inhibitions she had about touching, she leaned into Dash and squeezed him hard. Her heart was still pounding, and she couldn’t get the image of Marco’s frozen, staring eyes out of her mind.

“They didn’t get me,” she managed after a moment. “Are you all right?”

The front of his parka was torn to shreds, and blood dripped from his chin. She reached up to touch his jaw, wishing she had a medical kit. She didn’t know if that supply closet had held any.

“Its claws got me a few times, but I don’t think anything went too deep.” He didn’t sound that certain. “I’m encouraged that you’re fondling my chin, though you better grab a hand warmer and put your glove back on.”

McCall opened her mouth to reply, but Jae-yoon spoke first.

“Marco is dead.”

Dash’s shoulders slumped, and he didn’t make any more comments about fondling. He squeezed her shoulders and released her, then walked over to join the others.

“Who else has injuries?” Rose asked. “Can everybody left walk?”

“Yes,” everyone muttered, though many people had droplets of blood in the snow around them. Even Walters didn’t appear any worse than he had before, but he was uncharacteristically subdued as he looked toward Marco’s dead body.

McCall felt guilty that she hadn’t been hurt. Should she have tried harder not to let the creatures get by her? But she had helped. It wasn’t as if she had stood aside and done nothing. She told herself it was only dumb luck that she hadn’t been hurt. Given that she could trip and skin her knee on her own spaceship, she would likely end up injured before they made it to those mountains. Then she could join the others in leaving blood droplets.

She shuddered and hoped there weren’t any flesh-and-blood predators out here that would follow the scent. Though at least the blazer rifles should work better on real animals.

“How many stun guns do we have left?” Rose asked.

“Just one,” Jae-yoon said.

“Ah.”

Rose walked over to Marco’s body, bowed her head, and touched her chest where a Xerikesh monk’s prayer beads would have dangled. “Blessings of the Suns Trinity, my friend,” she said. Then she crossed her chest in a religious gesture less acceptable in the empire and murmured a quiet prayer.

“Let’s get over those mountains and to the dome,” Dash said when she was done. “Before whoever sent those robots out realizes they were destroyed and sends more.”

“No arguments here,” someone muttered. “No arguments here.”

12

They reached the mountains without being attacked again by robotic creatures. Dash was relieved, since they only had one stun gun left, but the white peaks weren’t any less formidable.

The good news was that they found a natural pass through the mountains. The bad news was that it turned out to be a highway for the wildlife. Mostly predatory wildlife. Dash occasionally saw something akin to a mountain jakloff high up among the ice-covered rocks, but more often, he glimpsed large shaggy animals similar in appearance to the robotic creatures.

He wondered what the herbivorous jakloffs ate until he spotted a group of them nibbling on blocks of frozen green matter that appeared to have been airdropped into the mountains. Later that day, he saw some of the predators chomping on smaller blocks of frozen meat. It seemed the Frost Moon 3 government wanted to keep the wildlife here alive, the better to impede escaped prisoners. Though Dash imagined some of the dome denizens might also pay for the privilege of coming out and hunting for sport.

“I think we should stop early for the night,” Rose said as the group trekked through the pass, slogging through deep snow drifts their boots weren’t designed to handle. She pointed toward ominous gray clouds hanging low over the mountains.

She was tramping along beside Dash. Somehow, they had become the leaders for the group. For her, it made sense, since she was a higher-up in the Alliance. He wasn’t sure how he had come to be an advisor on surviving here since he hadn’t spent a lot of time in harsh wildernesses. Maybe because the others had even less experience. A somewhat alarming thought, but two days into this march, they were still alive. Most of them. The group was moving more slowly than he would have wished, but half of them were injured by now, including Dash.

“I agree,” Dash said, eyeing snow skidding down a slope, driven by a sweeping wind that left ice coating his half-shredded parka and made him shiver. If not for the hand warmers, which he’d been tucking all over his body, they all would have lost digits to frostbite by now. “It was snowing hard when we first landed on the moon, and the visibility was horrible. We would have a hard time finding our way in snow like that.”

“Think there are any caves along the pass?”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” Dash looked toward the route ahead, then back at the rest of the group to check on McCall.

None of the group had been jovial since they’d lost Marco and the deadly dangers of the wilderness had grown concretely real, but McCall worried him with how little she had spoken during the trek. While he wouldn’t deem her chatty under any circumstances, she had been happy enough talking about on-demand electricity generating systems and detailing all the diseases that could be transmitted through saliva. She hadn’t said a word all day. When he’d brushed her mind with his senses a few times, she had been thinking about finding her ship and getting it back. An understandable goal, but there’d been an obsessive repetitiveness to the thoughts that he wasn’t sure was healthy.

Not that there was anything healthy about their current circumstances. He just wanted to make sure she held up since they weren’t making the best time, and it would probably take three more days to reach the dome. Assuming they didn’t get socked in for a week by the impending storm. Marco had done an admirable job getting as many provisions as he had in the chaotic darkness of the power outage, but between the extreme cold and the effort of hiking through unbroken snow, their group was going through the ration bars quickly.

“Is your friend doing all right?” Rose glanced back, following his gaze.

“I think so.”

“She wasn’t injured, was she? Jae-yoon has some ugly gashes that I’m worried will get infected. He’s been trying to keep them hidden.”

“We’ll get to medical care soon.” Dash touched his chest where he was being circumspect about his own wounds. The deep gouges liked to crack open and start bleeding anew whenever he moved too abruptly. His entire body hurt, but he kept telling himself that all they had to do was survive until they reached the dome, and then… He wasn’t sure. He hoped they would be able to get care, but they were escaped felons, at least in the eyes of the empire. Would they be arrested as soon as they walked into the dome?

“Is she against the Alliance?” Rose asked.

“McCall?”

“I’ve noticed she doesn’t talk to any of us. It doesn’t matter if she is, as long as she’s not going to turn us all in as soon as we get into the dome. Maybe she thinks she can buy her own expiation by pointing the law toward our group?”

Dash shook his head. “That’s not on her mind at all. She’s thinking about how she can get her ship back once we have access to the sys-net and resources again.”

Rose squinted thoughtfully at him.

Dash, remembering Walters’ questions about how he and McCall had gotten past the guards, reminded himself to be careful. He’d caught the kid looking thoughtfully at him a few times since then.

He had better not claim to know what McCall was thinking, especially when she hadn’t confided those things to him. She hadn’t been talking to him much more than she had the others. He thought that was because she was tired and in a funk, though, not that she was displeased with him or pondering turning them in. She’d even fondled his chin the other day.

He smiled faintly, touching the spot where a scab had grown and remembering the little tingle he’d felt at her simple gesture.

“If you say so,” Rose said dubiously.

“She would be a good person to get on our side. She has computer skills and is good at finding people. I imagine she could find resources for the Alliance too. And she owns her ship outright, if we—she—can get it back.” Funny how he imagined himself helping her reacquire it. Or maybe not. He had said he would. And it was his asshole of a sheriff who’d taken it. “The Alliance can always use more ships, especially fast ones that could act as couriers.”

“That night when you were in trouble in the bay, I asked if she would join if we helped you. She said no. She said we should help you just because you were with the Alliance.”

“Sounds reasonable.” He didn’t point out that McCall, who was not with the Alliance, had been much quicker to assist him in that fight than anyone else here.

“Sounds like someone loyal to the empire.”

“I suspect she, like many people, tolerates the empire and does her best to navigate the murky space the government creates between the suns.” Dash thought of that quotation about freedom that McCall had hanging in her ship. “I doubt she’s going to turn any of us in. Maybe you should talk to her sometime. You could sell the benefits of the Alliance. I suggested it myself, but I…” He didn’t want to nag her, nor could he be sure he only had the Alliance’s interests in mind. He’d never met anyone who wasn’t a Starseer who had learned about his telepathic abilities and not been alarmed—or worse—and she’d had his back even before he’d proven he was worth helping, at least from her point of view. “I don’t want to push her too much,” he finished, aware of Rose looking at him.

“I said hello to her a couple of times, and she just grunted at me.”

“She’s…” Aloof, he almost said. That was what he’d always heard about McCall before he’d met her. “Not that natural with people,” he said instead. “She’s worth the effort though.” He touched his scab again, thinking about how he might be as dead as Marco if she hadn’t thought of turning her stun gun battery into an explosive.

“Hm.”

Not exactly a promise to attempt to recruit McCall, but Dash decided to leave it at that. “Do you know of any people in Dome Seven who will be friendly to some Alliance fugitives looking to get back to their base?”

He intended to help McCall find her ship, but he needed to think about his future, too, and how they were going to get off this ice ball of a planet.

“Is that where you’re going?”

“I have to report in that my cover was blown. I either have to go back to bounty hunting or see if the Alliance has got something for me to do full time. Money doesn’t matter that much. I just need room and board.”

Dash imagined being in some barracks room somewhere, eating in a mess hall, and not seeing McCall again. Even though he hadn’t known her that long, the idea saddened him. But he couldn’t truly see her giving up her life and her career to join some scrubby misfits forced into hidden asteroid bases scattered throughout the system. Unless Axton’s report to Law Enforcement Headquarters about her stolen android resulted in an arrest warrant for her, and she had to go into hiding. He decided he would be an asshole if he hoped for that and for her to end up in an Alliance base down the hall from him.

“That’s about all the Alliance can offer, as you know,” Rose said. “But as for going full time? We might all be doing that soon. Things were getting serious when I was captured. Pilots will be in demand. Even better if you bring in someone with a ship.”

“Or if you do,” Dash said, smiling.

“Hm,” Rose repeated and looked toward the darkening sky. “We’d better find that cave.”

He sighed, hoping again that the storm wouldn’t delay them for too long.

* * *

Inside a dim cave, McCall sat against a rocky wall as comfortable as the inside of an iron maiden. Even with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs, she was freezing. As she had been ever since they’d stepped out of the prison dome. This place was miserable. Her brain was stuck in a rut, and all she could do was fantasize about stunning that Sheriff Axton and harnessing up Junkyard to drag his big cyborg body off the ship like a sled dog. Oh, Scipio could lift the brute with one hand, but the sled-cyborg image was more appealing to her.

Dash walked over and touched her shoulder. “Doing all right?” he asked, sitting down beside her.

Irritation at being disturbed—at having to talk—flashed through her, but she did her best to quash it. Dash had become a friend, and she would be an idiot to drive him away. He deserved far better than that. It wasn’t his fault that she was in a grumpy mood and poor company even to herself.

“Yeah.” Her voice felt raspy from disuse.

Had she spoken to anyone that day? She wasn’t sure. She had lost track of what day it was. The fourth since they left the prison? The fifth? They had been stuck in a cave with a storm raging outside and snow piling into the mountains for a small eternity.

The others sat around the single light stick they dared waste, chatting as if they were on a campout and had nowhere better to be. When McCall wasn’t fantasizing about Junkyard dragging Axton off her ship, she was worrying about how the Star Surfer was getting farther and farther away with each hour and how hard it would be to find—or get out of some law-enforcer impound lot.

“Are you regretting yet that you stood up for me and got stuck down here?” Dash asked, his tone light.

“Every other minute,” she grumbled.

She sensed that he wanted to make her feel better, and she appreciated it, but the only thing that would work would be escaping the moon.

Her gut gurgled, and her stomach growled.

Getting some decent food might help too. Food without any ingredients that made her sick. That was probably part of why she felt so moody and glum. She remembered a lot of days like this when she’d been younger, before she had figured out that she could feel better on a different diet. Of course, from what she’d heard, there weren’t that many ration bars left, so maybe it would soon cease to be a problem.

“Not every minute? Goodness, your days must be brighter and more joy-filled than I realized.” Dash bumped his shoulder against hers.

She didn’t have a witty retort, but she let herself lean against his shoulder. She didn’t like feeling that she needed anyone for support, but… she reluctantly admitted that it helped now.

“What’s going on?” someone demanded—Aleksei.

McCall straightened, at first thinking he had seen her leaning against Dash. Not that such a thing should constitute something “going on.”

“Somebody’s been taking extra ration bars.” Aleksei frowned around the cave, people’s faces haggard in the wan light from the luminescent stick. “There should have been eighteen left, two more for each of us, but there’s only thirteen. How are we supposed to split these fairly?”

“You’re the one who’s been carrying them,” Jae-yoon pointed out.

“Yeah, but everybody comes and picks out their own at night.”

McCall leaned her head back against the stone wall, not caring about the bars. She just wanted to—

“I bet it was her.”

Dash stiffened next to her. McCall opened her eyes to spot Aleksei pointing at her.

“What?” She hadn’t touched the box once on the trip. Dash had been doling her ration bars out to her.

“She doesn’t talk to the rest of us,” Aleksei said. “She’s not Alliance. What does she care if we all starve?”

“She hasn’t taken anything, Aleksei,” Dash said. “Relax and pass out what’s left. People can ration them however they want. The storm will end soon, and we’ll find more food when we get to the dome.”

Walters looked at Dash, his expression hard to read. McCall hadn’t been paying much attention to anyone else during their long treks, but she had seen Walters observing Dash from time to time, as if he expected to catch him at something.

“What if it doesn’t end soon? It’s been two days, and it’s not showing signs of letting up.” Aleksei thrust his arm toward the cave entrance and the snow piling up in front of it. “What if the suns-cursed thing goes on for months? Who really knows anything about this planet? We can’t have someone here sabotaging the group and taking more than their fair share.”

“Let’s not throw accusations around,” Rose said. “Did you see her take them?”

“I saw her near my stuff last night,” Aleksei said.

What? McCall didn’t even know what stuff was his. None of them had more than the survival gear Marco had gotten for them that first night.

“Trust me,” McCall grumbled, “I barely wanted the bars I’ve been given.”

But nobody looked like they were interested in trusting her. She shifted uncomfortably, the cold rock digging into her back. She didn’t want to be turned into some pariah because she wasn’t in the Alliance club.

She could understand people being hungry and frustrated with this whole situation—she definitely was—but this was ridiculous. What happened if they kicked her out of the group? She didn’t have a compass or know how to navigate by the stars. And with the snow blowing outside, how far would she get if she had to leave the cave? She would never find shelter.

“She didn’t take them,” Dash said coolly, staring Aleksei in the eye. “You took them. You’re only raising a stink so people won’t think it was you when someone else does a count.”

Aleksei rocked back. “That’s not true.”

McCall looked at Dash, his face in profile next to her. He looked as pissed as he sounded. With his telepathy, he would know the truth. Was he angry on her behalf? She felt a surge of relief that he was there and on her side.

“It’s not true,” Aleksei said, spreading his hands as he addressed the faces now turned toward him. “He’s lying to protect her. There’s no way he could know—”

“I saw you sneak out to eat two extras last night,” Dash said. “When you were supposedly taking a piss. Everybody else has been using the back of the cave since it’s so cold out there, but you went out in private so nobody would see you chowing down. Selfishly. We’re all hungry, you know.”

Aleksei’s face went pale at what must have been a precise description of what had happened.

“I didn’t,” he said, lifting his hands defensively. “I swear.”

Two of the men muttered between themselves. McCall hoped they had decided to shift their accusatory beliefs.

But Walters wasn’t muttering. He was squinting suspiciously at Dash. Could he know Dash hadn’t witnessed Aleksei’s legerdemain? At least not with his eyes?

“Sit down, Aleksei,” Rose said firmly. “Jae-yoon, hand out the rest of the bars, an equal measure. Cut them to make sure it’s equal. Like Dash said, people can figure out on their own whether to eat them now or save them.”

“Uh, does Aleksei get any?” Jae-yoon asked.

Aleksei’s face shifted from pale to an angry red. “You’re going to keep food from me because of his say so? We don’t even know him, not really.”

“That’s true,” Walters said. “All we know is what he told us. Who actually recognizes him? Are we sure he’s an Alliance pilot?”

McCall shifted her weight on the hard rocks. While she didn’t want the focus on her, she didn’t want it on Dash either.

“We’ll find out if he is or isn’t when he flies us to our base,” Rose said. “As for the bars, everybody gets an equal share.” Despite the words, she gave Aleksei a cool glare.

His bluster faded, and he sat down. Walters looked like he wanted to say more, but Rose turned her glare on him, and he wilted under it.

McCall slumped back against the rock wall. She wasn’t sure they were in the clear, but at least it didn’t look like there would be more trouble that night.

“Thank you,” she murmured quietly, glad she hadn’t snapped at Dash for sitting down next to her earlier. He definitely didn’t deserve to have her moodiness dumped on him.

“You’re welcome.” He had been frowning at Walters, but he turned it into a smile for her. “My mental talents may be weak, but they’re sufficient for ferreting out liars.”

“They seem sufficient to me in many ways.” She tried to think of something more to say, a compliment, a way to let him know he was… a lot more than she had expected him to be when she’d met him. But she had always been inept at complimenting people or even realizing when it was called for.

Dash reached over and patted her arm. She barely felt it through the thick sleeve of her jacket, but it seemed to say he understood.

“That’s handy,” she remarked, the words coming out before she could consider them.

“What? That I, uhm—”

“Kind of get what I want to say even when I can’t manage to say it.”

McCall admired his profile in the dim light. He had several days’ worth of beard growth now, not something she generally found appealing, but somewhere along the way, she’d started to find him appealing. When they’d first met, she hadn’t been certain if he was attractive, but she decided he was. And that she didn’t mind sitting shoulder to shoulder with him. She even wondered how it would be if there were fewer layers of clothing between them and she could feel the warmth of his touch.

He must not have been reading her thoughts just then, because his lopsided look seemed to be in response to her comment. “I think you’re the first person to call telepathy handy rather than an invasion of privacy.”

She could see instances where she wouldn’t want someone knowing what she was thinking, but if the tradeoff was that he understood her better than other people did, maybe it would be a boon.

“I’ve had people scream and curse at me before when they figured out what I was,” he said. His tone was dry but also a little wistful and sad.

“That sounds like an extreme reaction.”

“It was possibly during a moment of passion when, in my exuberance, I shared my feelings telepathically. And enthusiastically.”

“Ah.” She had never been exuberant during sex and was always somewhat bemused at the romances that occasionally took place in the mystery and thriller novels she enjoyed, romances where people succumbed to the throes of passion in predator-filled jungles with enemy blazer bolts flying overhead.

“Is that why you’re not married?” he asked.

“What? Lack of exuberance?”

“Yeah. Not liking physical contact would make it hard to enjoy sex, I suppose.”

McCall rubbed her face, less comfortable with the telepathy now that it had shifted to more personal matters.

“Sorry,” Dash said. “I’ll stop. I don’t usually root through people’s minds, to be honest. Some folks can sense it, and that makes it dangerous when you’re trying not to be sensed. It’s just that with you, you’re hard to read. You’ve got kind of a mask that you wear a lot of the time, and I guess I’ve been overly tempted to see what’s behind it.” This time, he rubbed his face. And looked embarrassed.

“It’s all right,” she said, a little surprised that she meant it. “To answer your question about marriage, it was more that I was too inept to figure out dating in school, and then I’ve been traveling for my job almost ever since. I worked for a private detective for a few years, figured out I was good at skip tracing, then went into business for myself. I would occasionally think, oh, it might be nice to find someone to share my life with, but I never learned how to go out and look. Nor did my experiences in school suggest I would enjoy looking.”

“I’ve had similar troubles. With meeting people while being busy traveling as a bounty hunter, that is. I did that work up until last year. Mostly, I got into the business to irk my mother, since she and her husband were positive it was a waste of Starseer talents and beneath me. Beneath them, anyway. But I ended up being pretty good at it, and like I said before, I liked capturing criminals who’d wronged other people. You’re right that traveling all over the Tri-Sun System doesn’t leave a lot of time for dating. And then, when you find someone and get telepathically exuberant, that is also problematic.”

McCall was now curious as to what telepathic exuberance would entail, but if throes of passion were required, she doubted she would know how to inspire it.

Dash looked like he would say something, but Jae-yoon walked over with ration bars. One full one for each of them and pieces that someone had painstakingly divided with a survival knife.

McCall’s stomach whined, but it seemed more a protest rather than a desire to eat them. She felt sick at the idea of chewing down more of the particleboard-like things.

“You can give mine to Dash,” she said when Jae-yoon offered her portions to her.

Dash frowned. “I’m not eating your food.”

“I think I’ll feel better if I fast.”

“You’ll need energy to make it the rest of the way across the mountains.”

“I store plenty of energy in my thighs. And my butt.” McCall closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the rock again.

“If she doesn’t want them—” Jae-yoon started to say.

“She wants them.” Dash took the bars.

McCall heard his zipper as he stuck them in his pocket, and she knew he would save them for her rather than eat them himself.

“I would forgive you,” she said as Jae-yoon shrugged and walked away.

“For what?”

“Telepathic exuberance.”

“That’s because you’re a superior human being.”

That surprised a laugh out of her, the first she’d remembered experiencing since all this started. Alas, it was more ironic than genuinely amused, but given how she’d been feeling, she would take it.

“That’s not what the imperial hospitals would tell you,” she explained, since Dash was looking at her curiously. “They have a surgery to normalize you—that’s what they call it—if you show signs of autism as a kid. Most parents are eager to have their children fit in and be healthy and normal, so they sign up for it. The empire strongly encourages it. Like I think you have to have a special chat with one of their therapists if you decide not to send your kids to the surgeon. But my mom was afraid of hospitals, afraid of the empire in general, and never went in for physicals or anything, for her or for me and my sister. Her mom had vocal anti-imperial tendencies and was taken in for their brainwashing procedure, the one they say they don’t do but they do. Something went wrong, and she was half crazy afterward. She ended up taking her life when my mom was only ten.”

“I’m sorry,” Dash said.

McCall spread a hand. “I never knew her, just got the story from my mother. Anyway, it’s understandable that my mom didn’t trust the empire or hospitals after that but unfortunate too. She got sick and didn’t go in for testing and treatment until it was too late. We lost her about ten years ago.”

“We?”

“Me and my sister.” Her sister, who’d once had plans to build a Perun space elevator but hadn’t spoken of it since voluntarily undergoing the normalization surgery several months earlier. “My dad passed away when we were in school. My family isn’t the halest.”

“That sounds like another good reason for you to eat your ration bars.” Dash patted his pocket.

“Sounds like a good reason not to. Those things are poison to me.”

“Well, I’ve got yours here if you change your mind.”

“I know you do. Thanks.”

He hesitated. “Is this one of those times when touching would be less unappealing?” He lifted his arm, offering a hug.

“I probably wouldn’t feel it through my parka.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a yes or a no.”

She leaned against his side. He dropped his arm around her shoulders and glared balefully at Aleksei when he looked over at them. She was glad.

13

McCall’s stomach growled like Sarkian pit dogs engaged in a fight to the death, but she didn’t care. Two of the system’s three suns shone in the icy white-blue sky, bringing the temperature up to a snuggly negative ten Fahrenheit as the rays gleamed on an opaque dome nestled in a snowy valley. The sunlight glinting off the ice and snow was dazzling—and headache inspiring—but McCall merely squinted and experienced happy thoughts about the potential to soon access the sys-net and find her ship. And Scipio and poor Junkyard.

Did the dog think she had abandoned him? Had Scipio been able to protect Junkyard from Axton? She would make up for her absence by taking him for a long romp on a thickly forested planet full of squirrels and flying tree-darters.

“Thank the suns,” Rose said, shuffling up beside her.

Dash was up ahead—he’d taken the duty of scout—crouching on a precipice that overlooked the dome from farther up the valley, but the rest of the group had been slogging wearily behind. McCall hadn’t felt any perkier than the others yesterday, the second day of her fast and the first day they’d gotten out of their cave, but this morning, she had woken up feeling alert, energetic, and clear-headed. She didn’t know if it was because that odious gunk had finally cleared out of her system or because her body had switched over to burning ketones, but she didn’t care. It was worth the hunger pangs to feel normal again. She would need her brain working to find her ship and get it back from that vile sheriff.

McCall nodded at Rose. “I can’t wait to feel warm. And surf the sys-net. While feeling warm.”

Rose blinked and looked over at her. “That’s the most you’ve said to me since we began this journey.”

“Sorry, I haven’t been feeling well.” Something that would have continued indefinitely if she’d been stuck in that prison, eating those awful rations. She couldn’t imagine how Egyptian slaves back on Old Earth had built pyramids while eating nothing but bread and beer. Or had it just been beer that was doughy like bread? Something else to look up once she had sys-net access.

Rose snorted. “I’m still having that experience.”

Yes, the rest of the group, even those who had rationed carefully, had finished their allotment of bars the day before. Everyone was hungry.

Rose looked over her shoulder at her group of men, then back to McCall. “I would like to apologize for Aleksei’s accusation. It was unfair of him to single you out as a scapegoat, especially if Dash was right, and he took the extra food himself.”

Of course Dash was right. But McCall couldn’t say that.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to apologize.” McCall flicked away some of the frost crystals lining her jacket hood. “He should apologize.”

“Yes, he should.” Rose smiled faintly.

McCall hitched a shoulder. She didn’t expect an apology or particularly care. She was used to being the odd one out in groups. When they’d been kids, her sister had always tried to say the right things and wear the right clothes to fit in. McCall, two years younger, had seen it tear McKenzie apart when it never quite worked out, so she’d just decided to risk the rejection and distance herself from it all.

“I wish I could extract those extra bars from him now,” Rose said. “I’m starving.”

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to get some decent food in there.” McCall knew there was a limited window during which she would feel good before she started to feel poorly from lack of sustenance.

“Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until night to get in. Or attempt to get in. Even if this winter gear covers our green prison outfits, I’m sure the entrances are monitored, and it’s likely whatever computer or person does that monitoring will have our descriptions.”

“True.”

McCall did not point out that Dash might be able to fiddle with the thoughts of a human guard, since he had chosen not to divulge his talents to these Alliance people. Or any Alliance people, she gathered. She wondered how he kept it a secret when it had seemed obvious to her after only a short time with him. Granted, they had been involved in extenuating circumstances, but even back on her ship, she’d gotten a few inklings about him.

Walters seemed to have had inklings too. He hadn’t said anything more since voicing concerns about Dash in the cave, but he reminded McCall of Junkyard when he was working on the same jakloff bone for hours, clunking the thing all over the deck of the ship.

“Money will be problematic too. These backwater border worlds don’t read banking chips or accept electronic currency, I’m told.” Rose rubbed her thumb and forefinger where most people had such chips subcutaneously implanted.

“Maybe. I haven’t been to any of the cities here—oddly, Frost Moon 3 doesn’t have a lot of digital tourism brochures out there—but I’ve usually found that more upscale shops have scanners and are plugged in. Admittedly, the time delay means they won’t let you use a chip if you look even vaguely sketchy, since they can’t instantly find out if the funds are available.” McCall looked herself up and down and then looked at Rose and the men coming up behind them. “We may need to think of alternatives.”

Rose snorted again. “Yes. We all look sketchy right now.”

McCall decided not to point out that even under normal circumstances, she’d had shopkeepers deny her when she tried to use her chip. Her hiking shoes and baggy trousers didn’t always convey great wealth. She’d taken to sending Scipio to do the shopping in such places or bringing physical imperial tindarks or the local currency. She had both in her vault on her ship.

“Everything would be so much easier if I had the Surfer,” she said wistfully.

“Your ship?”

“Yes.”

“Dash said it’s new and of high quality.”

“It is. I wanted something fast so I could outrun trouble if it came my way. Unfortunately, you have to see trouble coming to outrun it. Scipio and I weren’t paying attention when that law-enforcer sheriff started shooting at us. Well, technically, I’m sure Scipio saw the sheriff’s ship coming; he just thought nothing of it since it was an enforcer craft.” McCall twisted her lips, annoyed that she’d let herself get into this situation from the start. She should have fled from Axton and dealt with the consequences later.

But if she had, she wouldn’t have met Dash.

He was jogging toward them, so she lifted a hand.

“What are you two talking about?” he asked.

In the bright sunlight, his shredded parka was clearly visible—he appeared even sketchier than the rest of them. And in need of a hospital. But without money, treatment would be difficult to acquire.

“Trouble,” Rose said blandly.

“Why are you looking at me?” Dash asked.

“It’s a mystery,” McCall said. “Did you notice a door or way into the dome? I haven’t seen any ships fly in or out.”

“Maybe. There are tread marks in the snow from some vehicle that’s driven in or out recently.” Dash pointed toward one side of the opaque dome, the curving wall appearing no different than it did in any other spot. “I didn’t see a place where you could walk up, wave your hand, and have an opening appear for you.”

“Just because the controls aren’t visible doesn’t mean they’re not there,” Rose said. “The domes are more advanced than the prison.”

“That wouldn’t take much.” McCall imagined the group walking the perimeter that night, poking at the dome and hoping to stumble across a hidden door that would open at their touch.

The faint whine of engines reached her ears.

Dash jerked his gaze toward the sky. “Ship.”

“They might report us if they see us as they fly past,” Rose said.

“Follow me.” Dash waved to the group, then pointed at a route parallel to the valley. “I found a depression over there. It’s our best bet for hiding on short notice.”

As McCall and the others ran after him, the whine of engines grew louder. They slipped and skidded as they navigated part way down the slope of the valley into a divot. There wasn’t anything like foliage or even boulders to hide behind, and McCall felt exposed to the sky. They would have to hope the ship didn’t fly directly over them.

“I suppose this is as good a place as any to stay until nightfall,” Rose said when everyone was packed into the cranny. They could not see the dome without climbing out, but hopefully, that meant nobody in the dome could see them.

“I don’t know about that,” Jae-yoon grumbled. “I could think of better places.”

“On this planet?” Dash asked.

“Inside one of those domes. I bet they’re heated. And filled with food.”

The comment led to a discussion about what everyone would eat as soon as they made it into civilization. McCall decided not to point out that they would have a hard time keeping from being recaptured when they reached that civilization. Maybe they believed they could escape the moon and find refuge in their Alliance bases for the rest of their lives. Or until the empire was toppled and old crimes were possibly forgotten.

As if that would happen. McCall wouldn’t mind seeing the toppling of the empire, but nothing she’d read or seen on the sys-net suggested the Alliance had anywhere near the manpower or resources to accomplish that.

She hunkered down in the back of the depression as the roar of engines grew louder—a lot louder. Not only did she fear they were right along the ship’s flightpath, it sounded like the craft was flying low. To land next to the dome?

Not one but two white bullet-shaped ships came into view, flying past only a hundred yards from the group’s hiding spot. McCall hoped the pilots were looking at where they meant to land, not at the scenery below.

“Shit,” Dash cursed. “Those are law-enforcement ships.”

Numbness crept into McCall’s heart. She hadn’t noticed it at first, since her view of ships wasn’t usually from underneath them, but now she realized he was right. They were almost the exact model of vessel Dash and Axton had been flying before they usurped her ship.

“Could they already have been called in to look for us?” Rose asked.

“Those are definitely imperial law-enforcement ships,” Jae-yoon said. “Not planetary security.”

“How could the prison have called in reinforcements from the core worlds so quickly?” Rose asked.

“Those ships may have already been out among the border worlds,” Dash said. “And it has been six days since we escaped.”

“I was hoping they would assume we’d been eaten or killed and not send anyone to hunt for us.” Rose sighed wistfully.

McCall scooted to the far side of the depression and scrambled up the slope high enough to see the ships land. Dash flopped down beside her.

The vessels activated their thrusters and settled onto a snow-covered landing pad near the dome, one beside the other. The thrusters melted the snow into puddles before turning off. By the time a hatch opened a minute later, the water had hardened into ice, the sunlight glinting off it.

“Maybe they know where the door is,” McCall murmured as two figures in blue combat armor walked out.

At first, she questioned the armor—did they expect the civilians here to attack them?—but then she decided the officers had likely donned the suits as protection from the cold. Combat armor was rated for space which was only slightly colder than this place.

Dash stirred and gripped her arm. “That’s our way off this planet.”

“What? Stealing one of their ships?”

“It had better be both of them, so the other one can’t chase after us.” Dash pointed as the armored figures reached the side of the dome, and an oval opening appeared in the opaque wall. “They didn’t leave the hatch open, but I know a lot of law-enforcer codes, and my handprint opens a lot of doors. They may not have removed me from the database yet. It’s also possible—” Dash glanced over his shoulder—making sure nobody else was close enough to listen? “If the pilot or someone else is still inside, I may be able to convince the person to open the hatch long enough for us to force our way in.”

“This all sounds like a quick way for us to end up back in prison,” McCall said. “Or in front of a firing squad.”

“Only if we’re caught. Assuming there’s fuel enough, we can fly them straight to the nearest Alliance base.”

McCall had no idea where the Alliance bases were, but she was positive they were a long way from wherever Axton had taken her ship. She needed to get the Star Surfer, and she needed not to break any laws along the way. Any more laws. She had the hope that her punishment for taking Scipio would be a fine and that she might buy her way out of trouble. She would go into debt if she had to—she knew she could work it off eventually. Though she worried the empire would insist she give Scipio back in addition to paying a fine. That… was not going to happen. If she helped Dash and a bunch of Alliance people steal law-enforcement spaceships, matters could only get worse.

“The Alliance bases aren’t posh and full of the latest tech,” Dash said, looking at her, “but I’m sure there’s enough satellite access to let you hunt the sys-net for Axton. Hells, you can probably do that from one of those ships down there.” He waved at the law-enforcement vessels. “If you figure out where he is, I’ll detour before we go to the base. I’ll help you take him down. And if this doesn’t work and we get captured, I’ll say I made you come along, say you didn’t have anything to do with taking the ships.”

McCall blew out a slow thoughtful breath, the frigid air clouding in front of her face. She didn’t want him taking any blame for her, but could she truly object to this plan? As much as her instinct was to balk at stealing ships, this would be the fastest way off the planet. Who even knew if there were any ships inside the domes? If she parted ways with Dash and the others, she would be stuck in a prison uniform and possibly with no way to use her banking chip. She would likely end up having to steal one way or another.

“I’ll help you get him and your ship back,” Dash said again, looking intently at her. “I owe you that. I’d help even if I didn’t, but you wouldn’t be stuck down on this moon in that uniform if it weren’t for me. I haven’t forgotten that.”

“I know you’ll help. I believe you. I’m just thinking things through.”

“Think as long as you want.” Dash looked toward the dome. The armored officers had disappeared inside, the door closing behind them. “Up to ten minutes.”

“What?”

“I’m sure they’re not planning to get hotel rooms and spend the night. We may have a limited window.”

“Ah.” McCall habitually reached for her bracelet, but it was inside her jacket and glove, so she couldn’t fiddle with it. She grimaced and scraped her gloved fingers through the snow instead. “Who’s your second pilot?”

This time it was Dash’s turn to ask, “What?”

“You wanted to take both ships, but I don’t know how to fly those craft. Walters said he was about to start training, right? Is one of the others an experienced pilot?” McCall pointed her thumb toward the rest of the group.

“A good question.” Dash grimaced. “I’ll ask. If not, we may have to sabotage the other ship instead of taking it.”

“Theft and willful destruction of government property? It’s possible you’re a bad influence, Dash.”

“Does this mean you won’t want to have anything to do with me once you get your ship back?” He smirked, but there was a worried furrow in his brow.

She shouldn’t, especially if he was cavorting with the Alliance, but McCall couldn’t bring herself to say no. She had known him less than two weeks, but she would miss him once he was no longer a part of her life. She had the urge to collect him, the way she had Junkyard and Scipio, and keep him on her ship.

But he wasn’t an android or a dog. He was a person with a path that unfortunately didn’t line up with hers.

Dash’s smirk turned into a sad smile. He patted her on the back and said, “I’ll go see if we have a second pilot.”

14

They didn’t wait for full nightfall, but Opus had set, leaving only distant Novus Solis burning low on the horizon. Frost Moon 3 was far enough out from it that it seemed more like a star from another system than one of their own suns, and a soft twilight had fallen with the nebula visible in the sky. It wasn’t that dark, but it would have to do. If they waited any longer, Dash worried the law enforcers would come back out, reclaim their ships, and take off before he and McCall could enact their plan.

His plan, he admitted. McCall wasn’t enthused about the idea of theft. Understandable, but he had little to lose now that Axton had, he was positive, reported his betrayal to Headquarters. He did, however, have much to gain if he managed to get off this planet with a ship and seats full of Alliance prisoners. Getting Rose Akerele back to the base would definitely be a coup.

“What if we just kidnap the pilot?” McCall whispered.

“What?” Dash pulled his focus back to their advance on the spacecraft. He had talked Rose and the others into staying behind so they could try again on their own if his attempt to snag them a ship didn’t work. In truth, he wanted to use his telepathic power without having to worry about revealing himself.

“Instead of sabotaging the other ship. Maybe you could convince him to step outside to buff out a scratch on the hull, and we could tie him up and take him for a ride.”

“Nobody’s going to come out into subzero weather to buff anything.”

“You know what I mean, Dash. We wouldn’t have to permanently kidnap him, since that’s as much a crime as theft and sabotage are. We could drop him off ten miles from the dome. Long enough for us to fly out of range before pursuit starts.”

“I’ll keep that idea in mind.” Dash had been wondering how they would sabotage the second ship, since everything he could think of, short of firing at it, would involve getting inside first. “Let’s worry about this one first.”

They were walking up the center of the valley, following the vehicle treads Dash had noticed earlier. There was nothing to hide behind, so they weren’t bothering to try. He hoped whatever passed for security for the dome was waiting for them to get closer and wouldn’t send troops outside to capture them.

“Can you tell how many people are in the ships?” McCall asked.

“Not until we get closer. Sorry. One of my half-siblings could.”

She glanced at him. “Is that an important piece of trivia?”

He grunted. “No.”

As they neared the ships, Dash slowed his pace. He stretched out with his mind, sensing a single person inside the closest vessel. The pilot, presumably.

There were three people, including a pilot, in the second craft—that one hadn’t let anyone out yet. Was the crew waiting for a report from the others? The pilot was alone in the navigation cabin, and Dash decided McCall’s kidnapping ruse might work if he could come up with a way to convince the man to come out alone. But he wanted to get the other ship for his team first.

He pulled off his glove and rested his palm on the icy hatch lock reader. The surface was covered with frost, but it lit up long enough to flash Access Denied. So much for that thought.

He put his glove back on and closed his eyes, focusing his mind on the pilot inside. On how to convince him to open the hatch.

“We should have brought some Southern Arkadian dumplings,” he muttered, then tried to convey the idea that the two armored law enforcers were on their way back so the pilot should open the hatch. He definitely shouldn’t look at his exterior cams and wonder who the two fur-clad strangers rubbing the hull were.

“I can eat those without trouble,” McCall said. “The wrappers are made from rice paper. Rice and I get along moderately well.”

“I’ll keep that in mind in case I ever have the opportunity to pick up take-out food for you.”

“Most of those places deliver.”

“Not to secret Alliance bases.”

“They might if you gave them directions. And a big tip.”

Dash snorted but then frowned. He sensed distrust from the pilot. And suspicion.

“I think the pilot may have some Starseer genes,” Dash said. “Or he’s just one of those sensitive mundanes.”

“Does that mean you’re having trouble convincing him to let us in?”

“Yes. He’s now looking at us on his camera too.”

“Maybe the other pilot would be more amenable to your manipulation?” McCall suggested.

“I’ll try, but he has two other men on board who might object to his sudden urge for fresh air.”

Dash, aware that they were being watched on at least one man’s cameras, headed around the front of the first ship, as if he intended to bypass them and walk into the dome. He was a normal dome denizen returning from a stroll in sub-zero temperatures. No need to worry about him… He certainly wasn’t an escaped prisoner.

Using his senses, he found the pilot of the second craft, not in navigation but in the head. Dash almost dismissed him in favor of someone closer to the hatch, but he paused. That might actually work well.

He stopped walking and stuck his gloved hands in his pockets as if he were considering the dome, but he concentrated on the man, planting the idea that his colleagues from the other ship were in trouble. Someone was stealing their vessel, and they needed help. Dash added a suggestion that the pilot might get in trouble for having been away from his duty station and not paying attention for so long, even though he had no idea how long the man had been in the lav. But he was young, probably new to his rank. Maybe…

“This ship.” Dash tilted his head toward the hatchway as he sensed the man yanking up his trousers and running out of the lav. “As long as nobody stops him to ask what he’s doing, I think we’re going to be invited in.”

As Dash jogged between the ships and toward the hatch, he checked on the locations of the other people again. Then grimaced. The two men were in the passenger cabin right next to the hatch.

“Get your stun gun ready,” he told her, slinging his rifle off his shoulder.

She had brought the lone stun gun the team had remaining. Dash almost asked for it, since he didn’t truly want to shoot anyone with a deadly weapon, but she was capable with it.

“I don’t think it’s an invitation if we need weapons,” McCall murmured.

Dash stopped next to the hatch but where they wouldn’t be in sight when the pilot opened it. McCall came up to his shoulder, pointing the stun gun. He would let her fire first.

As Dash reached out to the pilot again, wanting to reaffirm his mental suggestions, he found the man next to the hatch controls, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at one of his comrades. Someone had questioned what he was doing. Hells.

Dash attempted to share urgency with the pilot again. He wished he could affect two people’s minds at once with the same message, but it would take someone more powerful than he for that.

A rumble started up nearby and Dash jumped. It wasn’t this ship but the one with the lone pilot who had been watching them on the camera and probably found them extremely suspicious.

“Is he taking off?” McCall stared. “Without his fellow officers?”

The hatch in front of them opened, and Dash touched her arm, drawing her attention back. “Stun as soon as—”

McCall leaned around the jamb and fired. A soft thump sounded—someone hitting the deck?

“Now?” she asked, leaning back.

“Now works.”

Dash started to charge in, but the other two crewmen appeared behind the crumpled pilot. They leaped through the hatchway, blazer rifles at the ready.

Dash grabbed McCall and pulled her behind him as blazer bolts shot out, slicing through the air where she had been and splashing against the armored hull of the other ship. The owners of the weapons wore dark blue combat armor, but they had been relaxing and didn’t have their helmets on.

“Aim for their heads,” Dash barked, shooting as he spoke.

He took one man in the face, but the other ducked as McCall fired. The stun bolt clipped his shoulder, the nimbus surrounding his torso, but with the armor on, it didn’t affect him. He pointed his blazer straight at McCall.

Dash lunged in and slammed the butt of his rifle into the man’s head. He staggered back but still managed to fire. Dash gasped, terrified the bolt would hit McCall, but she had moved. She had her back plastered to the hull of the ship.

The law enforcer snarled and lunged at Dash, his speed enhanced by his armor. Dash tried to dodge out of the way and club him again with the rifle, but the man’s armored fist slammed into his shoulder. It hit like a wrecking ball, hurling him backward.

Dash hit the snow-covered ice hard but rolled and got his feet under him. As he sprang up, he was aware of the nearby ship lifting off, but he couldn’t worry about that now. The law enforcer charged at him, lifting his rifle to fire.

McCall shot him in the side of the head.

Without his helmet on, the enforcer had no defense. His eyes rolled back in his head as he tumbled to the snow, his momentum sending him skidding into Dash’s feet.

“Thank you,” Dash said as he jumped aside.

“Stun guns are a preferable weapon when you don’t want to kill your enemies,” McCall remarked, waving hers.

“Yes, I would happily be using one if we hadn’t blown the rest of them up.”

“Next time we’re attacked by giant robot predators, I’ll attempt to blow up the rifles instead.”

“Call me odd, but I’m going to hope there isn’t a next time for that.”

“Odd.” She smiled.

Dash jogged up to the hatch, patting her on the shoulder as he passed. “You’re perky when you don’t eat.”

“I’m perky when I don’t eat horrible food. You are going to stop at a grocery store after we abscond with this ship, right?”

“Uh.” Dash hadn’t had any such plans, since he had no money and was wearing neon green clothes under his parka, but it would depend on what kinds of rations they found inside.

The roar of engines grew louder, and thrusters fired as the other ship lifted off. Dash didn’t know what the pilot planned, but he couldn’t worry about it until he had this ship secure.

He did a quick mental double-check to ensure he didn’t sense anyone else inside, then jumped through the hatchway. He and McCall hurried to drag out the unconscious pilot and leave him on the ground with his stunned colleagues.

“Close the hatch,” Dash ordered McCall, glimpsing the other ship in the air, and raced toward navigation. He feared he was barking obvious orders, but he worried about that other ship and that an attack might come from the dome itself once their security people figured out what they were doing.

“We’re sealed in,” McCall called back.

Dash slid into the pilot’s seat, glad he was familiar with the controls. The comm light flashed, and he grimaced, imagining someone ordering him to give up the ship.

He hit the button to turn on the audio but concentrated on starting the engines and getting the shields up. He needed to pick up the rest of the team before he could take off for the atmosphere. He hoped there wasn’t a fleet of law-enforcement ships waiting in orbit.

“…got our ship,” a male voice blasted over the comm. “Get out here.”

“Well, stop him!”

“Working on it, but do you want me to fire on our own ship?”

Dash realized nobody was comming him. This ship was on the same channel as the other one and the enforcers who had gone inside. Did they realize he was listening in?

As soon as he had the thought, the comm went silent. They must have switched channels.

“I’m taking us up,” Dash said as McCall slid into the seat next to him, her stun gun back in her pocket. It wouldn’t do them any good now.

He tapped the control panel, and a holodisplay popped up, showing him the terrain around them and the position of the other ship. It was hovering above them, poised to fire.

“Shields are up, right?” McCall had removed her gloves, and she twisted her bracelet as she watched that ship.

“Yes. Ours are, and so are his. But we won’t be able to pick up the others without lowering them.” Dash pointed the nose of his purloined craft skyward, not wanting to be under the other ship if the pilot opened fire.

“No way to manipulate that one’s mind, right?”

“No, I already tried. He’s definitely not going to fall for anything now that—”

The other ship fired, and Dash cut himself off. He hadn’t wanted to attack a law-enforcer craft—temporarily sabotage, yes, but shoot down and possibly hurt the pilot, no—but he didn’t see that he had a choice. He couldn’t flee, not with the rest of the team waiting for him.

He took a deep breath and started evasive maneuvers while returning fire. He could have asked McCall to help shoot—she was in the co-pilot’s seat, and it had access to weapons—but he didn’t. It was bad enough she’d had to stun people out in the open where a camera might have caught it. He didn’t want anyone finding out she’d willingly helped him attack a law-enforcer ship.

The ship rattled as his opponent fired relentlessly. The law enforcers must have decided it was worth taking down their own ship to capture him—or to ensure they didn’t lose a vessel to escaped prisoners and have to explain that to their superiors later. Dash had no trouble understanding that line of thinking.

He flew behind the dome, using it for cover and luring the other ship away from the portion of the valley where Rose and the others waited. He didn’t want to risk them being hit by stray e-cannon blasts.

The other ship stuck to him, firing hard and often. Dash twisted his craft in the air, doing his best to take as few hits to the shields as possible. He returned fire, aiming for the rear of the other craft, the engines. But his opponent was twisting and rolling too.

Aware of McCall watching intently, Dash felt self-conscious. It was the last thing he needed to worry about just then, but he wanted to win the fight, to prove himself the superior pilot, with her watching on. The problem was that he wasn’t sure he could. So far, the other pilot had proved every bit as effective as he, and Dash worried as his shields took more hits and gradually lost their integrity. Would he have to flee to the mountains, try to find a way to evade this pilot, and then come back later for the others?

He thought about flying the craft close to where the stunned law enforcers lay in the snow, so that his enemy would have to stop firing lest they be hit, but Dash couldn’t bring himself to do something so cowardly, not even if his life was at stake.

“I’m going to try something,” McCall said.

“Go for it,” was all he could manage to say, looping around to avoid the other pilot’s attempt to strafe him from above.

“Wish I was better at lying,” she muttered, then tapped a few controls on the comm.

Making it look like their transmission would come from another source? Dash felt his brow furrow in confusion, but he was too busy flying to ask.

She opened the comm to the other ship. “Law-enforcer pilot, this is McCall Richter, an independent skip tracer who’s often helped your office find criminals.”

Dash didn’t know what she was doing and worried she would incriminate herself further, but he couldn’t spare the mental energy to check on her thoughts.

“I’ve been kidnapped by the loon who’s flying this ship,” she whispered loudly. “He threw me in the back and threatened me if I didn’t stay put, but I managed to grab a comm unit.” She looked over at Dash and mouthed, “Sorry.”

He flung up a dismissive hand. Whatever she was attempting to do, he trusted her. And it wasn’t as if he could get in any more trouble with the law right now.

She pointed meaningfully at the piloting controls in front of him.

“Do you want me to try to do something?” McCall continued to whisper into the comm. “I think I could get to the engine room, maybe sabotage something. Can you give me instructions? Over.”

She muted the comm and leaned back.

“I’m just hoping to distract him and make him hesitate if he thinks there’s an innocent civilian in here,” she said. “Probably pointless since Axton will have reported about Scipio by now, and the law may no longer believe me innocent. But maybe the word hasn’t gotten out to all officers yet. He should be too distracted to look me up anyway.”

The comm flashed. “Shit, I didn’t know there was a civilian in there,” the pilot said. “Try to—” He broke off in a stream of obscenities.

Dash knew why. He’d succeeded in getting under the other ship’s belly and had opened up on the hull protecting the engines. Meanwhile, the pilot had stopped firing as soon as he’d realized a civilian was on board. A kidnapped civilian.

Under his battering, the other ship’s shields ran out of juice. Dash fired rapidly and sheared off a piece of the hull that had protected the engines. He twisted in the air and came in for another run. Smoke wafted from the bottom of the ship. The pilot continued evasive maneuvers, but he’d stopped returning fire. Dash chased him around the dome again, continuing to attack the engine compartment.

A burst of flames came from the hull. The ship angled downward, either to crash or for a forced landing.

Hoping he was out of commission for a while, Dash flew back to the other side of the dome and up the valley toward the Alliance group.

“Thanks, McCall,” he said. “I would have preferred to beat him with sheer skill rather than trickery, but sometimes, you have to take what you can get.”

“When time is of the essence, I should think so.”

The comm panel flashed with an incoming message from the dome. Dash, certain it would involve threats, ignored it.

As soon as he spotted Rose and the others waving on the ground, he took the craft down and opened the hatch without turning off the engines. They raced into the ship, and the hatch thumped as someone shut it.

“We’re all here,” Rose called up to him.

“Glad to hear it.”

Dash pointed the nose toward the darkening night sky and didn’t look back. He did look at the sensors for signs of other ships that might cut them off, but there were only two in orbit on the far side of the moon, and neither was heading in their direction. Frost Moon 3 wasn’t exactly a major destination for fleet, law-enforcement, or merchant ships, and he thanked the suns for that.

“Finally, sys-net access.” McCall smiled and rubbed her hands on the console.

“That’s the biggest smile I’ve seen from you,” Dash remarked.

“We’re getting off this moon, and I’m excited to find my ship.” She pulled up an interactive holodisplay, and her fingers danced in the air. But she paused sooner than he expected. “Your law-enforcer buddies left their orders up.”

Her voice had an odd note to it, and Dash glanced over. He was too busy piloting them away from the moon to surf through her thoughts.

“Were they not here to recapture the odious Alliance fugitives who escaped prison?” he asked.

“No. Their orders are to investigate the crash and the loss of one of their officers.”

“The crash?”

“One of their sheriffs.” McCall prodded a virtual button, and a video filled the display.

“Something happened to Axton?” Dash didn’t know of any other sheriffs who would have been loitering around the domes close to the prison. He supposed some others might have come to drop off prisoners, but the ashen expression on McCall’s face made him doubt that. He sensed growing horror within her as the video started playing.

It was grainy. It looked like a camera mounted outside one of the domes had recorded the airspace above it. The video showed a hulking freighter flying in from space, heading down toward the dome. A supply ship full of groceries? Or maybe it had come to pick up coal.

As the freighter traveled downward, a small sleek ship flew out of an exit in the top of the dome. It left puffs of smoke behind, as if it were damaged, but it sailed straight up toward the freighter without a hitch.

Unerringly toward the freighter. What in all three suns’ hells? There should have been plenty of room and time for the ship’s pilot to navigate around the bigger vessel, but it flew in an inexorably straight line. The freighter shifted, trying to avoid it, but the hulking craft couldn’t move quickly enough. The small ship flew right into its belly and exploded in a fiery crash. When the light faded, nothing remained of it, save for a huge scorch mark and damage to the bottom of the freighter.

That sense of horror increased in McCall, accompanied by stunned disbelief. Dash understood why. The ship that had exploded had been purple.

15

McCall sat hunched in a passenger seat as Dash took the law-enforcement ship out of orbit and headed off to some Alliance base or who knew where. At the moment, she didn’t care. She was watching the replay of the crash on a netdisc she’d found and wishing the Alliance people weren’t using the only two cabins, so she could have a private place for herself. People chatted affably, delighted to be free from Frost Moon 3, but affable was the furthest emotion from what she felt. Maybe she could lock herself in one of the cells in the back—the ship had plenty of those—for privacy.

But it seemed too much effort to move. She nibbled on her bracelet as she watched the video again, wondering how that crash could have happened.

Her research identified the freighter as a vessel automatically piloted by computer and with no human crew or passengers, but the error hadn’t been on its end, so she didn’t suspect sabotage to the system. Not to the freighter’s system.

Something had to have been done to the Star Surfer. What else would make sense? The sky had been completely open, the weather clear. There was no reason her ship should have crashed into that freighter. Unless Scipio had been piloting it and had done it on purpose. To take out Axton and ensure he didn’t live another day? But why would her logical and rational android friend make such a decision?

And what of Junkyard? A hard lump in her throat swelled. Had he been on the ship? Or had Axton killed him the first day, so it hadn’t mattered to Scipio if the ship went down?

The thought brought tears to her eyes, and she scrunched lower in her seat, not wanting anyone to see her cry. Maybe it would have been all right if Dash had seen—this was a rare moment when she wouldn’t have minded a hug—but he was busy piloting the ship. Rose sat up there in the co-pilot’s seat as they no doubt discussed which Alliance base they would head to and what rebellions against the empire they would plan next.

Meanwhile, McCall had lost everything. Her ship and her two best friends. Technically, she could do her job without a ship, but she cringed at the thought of ferrying herself around on public transportation to meet with clients and search the local databases on planets not linked to the sys-net.

Why would Scipio have done this? Would he truly have given her up as dead and presumed he could go kamikaze in her ship? And would his program have allowed him to intentionally take a human life?

“No,” she mumbled, then sat up straighter in the chair. “No,” she said more firmly.

None of that sounded like Scipio unless someone had reprogrammed him. He was a personal assistant android, not a combat model. Even if he found Axton horrific, he would never try to kill the man. Nor would he destroy her ship for no reason. It wasn’t logical, and Scipio was always logical.

“Was Axton flying?”

Dash had said he wasn’t a pilot. Had Scipio abandoned the helm and forced Axton to fly the ship on his own?

McCall shook her head slowly. The Surfer had been aiming for that freighter. Even an inexperienced pilot should have been able to navigate out of the way of that freighter. Besides, Scipio wouldn’t have refused to fly for the same reason he wouldn’t have tried to destroy the ship. It wasn’t logical.

She drummed her fingers on the armrest and watched the video again. The smoke that had been coming out of the ship as it flew upward was odd. If the Surfer had been damaged, why would they have left port?

The smoke puffs were odd too. Not a single long stream of smoke that one would expect from a damaged craft. Long puffs followed by short puffs. It almost seemed a pattern for her to decode.

“Morse code?” She tilted her head, envisioning dashes and dots in the puffs. She didn’t think the fleet taught it, nor did people typically have a reason to use it in this space-faring era, but Scipio, with his encyclopedic knowledge, likely knew the code. And she… Well, her knowledge wasn’t encyclopedic, but she had read plenty of books about Old Earth and could look up a code easily enough.

“Let’s find out.”

She pulled up a notepad on the holodisplay next to the video and wriggled her finger in the air to record the pattern. Frost Moon 3 didn’t have real-time access to the sys-net, but she could connect to its scattering of satellites now and download from databases on the domes’ various servers. She pulled up the legend for Morse code and found she could translate the dots and dashes to letters.

It is a ruse.

“Dash,” she blurted, lurching to her feet.

He spun in the pilot’s seat as if he thought she’d been stabbed. Stabbed with certainty, maybe.

McCall sprinted up and dropped to her knees beside Dash, Rose looking at her curiously from the co-pilot’s seat.

“The smoke puffs,” McCall said. “It was a message.”

She held up her notepad display for him to read.

“It is a ruse? The crash was?”

“That must be what it means. Somehow, Axton faked everything. They must have flown in close and detonated some explosions, just made it look like my ship blew up.”

Rose’s forehead wrinkled. “To what end?”

“To get the ship is my guess,” McCall said. “Even a few years old, the Surfer is probably worth ten years of his salary. Law enforcement doesn’t pay that well, I know. Look, I’ll download the Dome Seven news feeds to see what they say, but I’m sure they reported Sheriff Axton as dead. That’s why an investigation team was sent out. But if the entire system believes he’s dead, he’s free to head off and sell my ship on the black market. Or keep it. He probably knows enough to go off the grid and not be found again. I would.”

Rose oozed skepticism. Even with her limited ability to read people, McCall could tell. Rose would want to head straight to her Alliance base, not veer off following hunches.

“That presumes he’s willing to give up his career, his benefits, and easy access to his friends and family,” Rose said.

“Yeah, so? You did it for the Alliance, didn’t you?”

Rose blinked. “Well, yes, but that was for a noble cause. For something important, more important than my comfort.”

“Different things motivate different people, Professor. I’m sure you know that. If we were on the Surfer, I could show you my list of human motivations.”

Dash gazed thoughtfully at McCall. Peering into her mind, perhaps. Well, let him. She had to convince him she was right so he would detour to… She didn’t know where yet. But she would figure it out. There was no way some over-muscled reject from the Cyborg Corps would elude her. She would find him, and she would find him fast.

“Figure out where he is,” Dash said slowly, “and I’ll take you there.”

Rose frowned at him. “This ship has been blatantly stolen. It’s not a good idea to roam the system in it. The first time we cross paths with a fleet or law-enforcement ship, we’ll be in trouble.”

“None of us would have gotten out of that prison without McCall,” Dash said, his voice turning hard. “Who wouldn’t have ended up in there if she hadn’t been standing up for me. If Axton has her ship and she can figure out where, I’m taking her to get it.”

Rose lifted her hands. “I’m not saying not to help her, just that you could drop us all off first. We might be able to find you a different ship to use, one that isn’t hot.”

McCall bristled at the idea of a further delay. The more time that passed, the harder it would be to track down her ship. If Axton intended to sell it to a black-market buyer, it would be taken apart and sold off in pieces. The same thing might happen to Scipio. She cringed.

“I’ll head to the base for now,” Dash said, “but if you figure out where he is, McCall, let me know. We’ll change course.”

“Thank you.” She rose from her knees and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Is that voluntary touching?” He grinned.

“You object?”

“Not at all. I’m basking in the preciousness of this rare gesture.” He reached up and laid his hand on hers, gazing into her eyes.

She didn’t find his directness as uncomfortable as she would have a couple of weeks ago—strangely, it didn’t make her uncomfortable at all. She noticed the warmth of his palm, and her mind took a wayward turn, envisioning him sliding his hand up her arm and perhaps to other spots.

Aware of Rose sitting right next to them, McCall blushed and extracted her hand. She patted Dash on the back so he wouldn’t feel her withdrawal was a rejection. Then she retreated to the rear of the ship to scour what news articles and reports she could get from Frost Moon 3. She needed information. A lot of it.

* * *

Hours passed as McCall sat cross-legged on the hard floor of the cell, alternating between twirling her bracelet and swiping her fingers through the holodisplay hovering above the netdisc. She itched to have real-time access, but it would be a couple days’ travel before they were close enough for that. In the meantime, she sent messages to people in all the legal and illegal ship repo and salvage facilities she’d ever had contact with. Since tracking down ships not returned when buyers failed to make their payments accounted for a lot of her work, she was familiar with a lot of them. She offered the people a reward, no questions asked, for information on the whereabouts of her ship.

She hated to admit she had lost it through her own stupidity, but it would be worse not to find it again. Not to find Scipio and Junkyard too. She didn’t even know if Junkyard was still alive. She wished Scipio had added a few more puffs of smoke to his message to assure her that he was.

Someone in the corridor stepped into view.

“That is an interesting choice for a place to do research.” Rose peered into the cell.

“With access to the sys-net, a library is anywhere you are,” McCall said, quoting the librarian-monk Rafael Zapatero.

“I’ll concede that. Are you making any progress?”

McCall eyed her warily, hoping she hadn’t come to try to talk her out of diverting Dash. “Not as much as I would have if I had real-time access and the search algorithms I’ve created that are stored on my ship’s computer. But I’ll find him.”

Rose nodded. “I hope you do and that there’s a way to bring to light his criminal behavior. Even before I encountered him, I had heard of his reputation as a brute. He’s known for being physically violent whenever he gets a chance.” She touched her cheek as if in some memory of a beating.

McCall wouldn’t be surprised if Axton had hit her. All of the prisoners he’d captured.

She thought about pointing out that the cyborg surgery and hormone imbalances likely contributed to his instability and penchant for violence, but she didn’t know if it would matter to Rose. She likely had reasons enough already to detest the empire without contemplating the somewhat experimental surgeries they did on their soldiers.

“I would happily report him,” McCall said, “but he may have already reported me, so my word wouldn’t be given any credence.”

“Oh? What did you do?”

“I liberated an android that wasn’t mine to liberate.”

Rose smiled. “Is that the same as saying you stole him?”

“He walked away of his own volition. I just… held the door open for him and encouraged him.”

“What did you do with him after that?”

“He’s my business partner. He’s on my ship—I hope he’s still on it—along with Junkyard. That’s why I have to get it back as soon as possible. To make sure they’re all right.”

“Junkyard?”

“My dog.” McCall considered Rose with wariness again, suspecting that she was used to risking herself for human lives and might scoff at the idea of a pet being that important.

But Rose merely smiled again. She had a serene smile. “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves… Defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

“I don’t think the Christian bible was talking about dogs, but yeah.”

Rose’s smile widened. “You’re well-read for a skip tracer. That’s not a very popular religion anymore.”

“Not with the empire insisting we all worship the Divine Suns Trinity, no.” McCall had been an atheist for as long as she could remember, but her mother had found comfort in religion, and as a kid, McCall had read a lot of the foundational materials of the new and old faiths in an attempt to understand why. That summed up most of her life. Reading books to try to understand the species she was a part of. She wondered if things were more intuitive now for her sister.

“Indeed. We—the Alliance—hope to create a system where it’s safer for people to follow whatever deity they wish. Or none at all if that’s their preference.”

Maybe she hadn’t come back here to talk McCall out of diverting Dash; maybe she’d come to do a little recruiting.

McCall grimaced at the idea, especially since she didn’t want any distractions. But ever since she’d read the woman’s file, she had been a tiny bit curious about why Rose had joined the Alliance. Unlike so many of the people who joined out of desperation—after their political or religious preferences, or general unwillingness to go along with the status quo, had gotten them in trouble—Rose had walked away from a good career and a respected place in her community.

“Why did you join?” McCall wondered if Rose also had a relative who’d had his or her personality adjusted by imperial doctors and who hadn’t been the same afterward.

Maybe if McCall had ever known her grandmother, she would have felt as personally outraged toward the empire as her mother had, as fearful and distrustful of them. Mostly, she had spent her life treading carefully and saying little that would cause some imperial doctor to remark in her file that she wasn’t normal. Self-censorship? She supposed so, but it didn’t seem there were many other choices.

“I was at the Perun Arcade Massacre. I wasn’t a target, but I witnessed it all firsthand. It’s hard to just go about your life after something like that, to hold your tongue, to say nothing as injustice—as murder—goes on around you. You’re familiar with Niemöller’s poem?”

“Yes.” McCall was relieved when Rose didn’t quote it. The Old Earth poem was popular among those recruiting for the Alliance. One could hardly go into a public lavatory on a space station and not find the last verse graffitied on the stall doors, which was impressive given how efficient the cleaning robots usually were.

Rose spread a hand, as if that explained everything. For her, maybe it did. “I also realized that nothing would ever come of the Alliance if smart and educated people from all walks of life didn’t join. Granted, I’m not one of the military commanders with expertise in strategy and tactics, but I offer a balancing viewpoint and some wisdom to counter their tendencies. Or so they’ve told me. At the least, they don’t ask me to bring them coffee anymore.”

McCall snorted.

“I’ll leave you to your research.” Rose gestured toward the holodisplay still floating between them. “But before I go, let me thank you for your assistance in the prison. I’m embarrassed it took Dash’s words to remind me how integral you were. If you find yourself in need of a home or assistance because of all that’s happened, I’ll be happy to arrange refuge for you. I’m sure you can find me.”

Rose lifted her hand and departed, leaving McCall alone in the silent cell. Alone and surprised that hadn’t turned into a recruiting speech. Or maybe it had merely been a more subtle one than she had heard before. Either way, McCall found she didn’t resent it.

McCall shook her head, then buried herself in her research and forgot everything else for a time.

16

As Dash stretched and yawned, the ship’s interior lights transitioned from daytime brightness to a soft nighttime dimness.

“Good,” he mumbled and glanced over his shoulder for the twentieth or thirtieth time.

Several of the Alliance people had disappeared into the two cabins with their two bunks each, but a couple more snoozed across rows of seats toward the back. Beyond them, a corridor led to the lavatory, engineering, and the brig cells. Dash knew McCall was working back in one of the cells, and he’d wanted to check on her to make sure she’d eaten something and was doing all right, but he hadn’t wanted to disturb her.

The comm light flashed, and he grimaced. Enough hours had passed for the news to have been sent back to Headquarters that the law-enforcement ship had been stolen. This was probably some high-ranking officer sending a message to let Dash know that his career was over and he was now designated shoot-on-sight to all law enforcers.

At least it would only be a recording. It would be a couple more days before they flew close enough to the core worlds for real-time communications.

Dash tapped the comm, and a holodisplay appeared over the panel. He recognized Chief Harrington’s slack-jowled, droopy dog face and braced himself.

“Sheriff Spiner,” the chief said. Spiner? Had that been one of the men in combat armor that Dash and McCall had stunned and left on the ground? Or one of the officers that had gone into the dome? “We’re awaiting your report on the death of Sheriff Axton and how it came about. Also if Deputy Deshmukh was on board their ship at the time of the crash.”

Their ship? Dash was surprised Harrington hadn’t called the Star Surfer the borrowed civilian ship or some such.

“Were they able to apprehend the Alliance prisoners?” Harrington continued. “We received a confusing transmission from Frost Moon 3 that said Axton dropped off prisoners who then escaped, but the prison didn’t think it pertinent to identify the prisoners. And Axton hasn’t reported anything in more than two weeks. Figure out what in all the hairy suns’ hells is going on out there, Spiner, and then report in to me, damn it.”

The chief slapped the recording off with an angry smack of the hand, and his face disappeared.

Dash leaned back in his seat. Axton hadn’t reported anything in two weeks? Did that mean the law enforcers didn’t know that Dash had been undercover for the Alliance? Or that he’d helped free Rose and the others? Huh.

He quickly quashed thoughts of being able to go back and resume his deputy position—and spying for the Alliance. Between the prison break and his theft of the law-enforcement ship, it was only a matter of time before the truth got back to Headquarters. He had left plenty of camera footage behind him.

“But maybe not,” Dash mused, scratching his jaw, “enough footage to condemn McCall.”

Because if Axton hadn’t reported back in two weeks, that might mean he hadn’t told anyone about McCall’s dubiously acquired android friend. But why wouldn’t he have?

Dash tapped the internal comm connected to the speaker closest to the cells. “McCall? Do you have a minute? I received an interesting transmission.”

McCall had also left some incriminating camera footage behind—her helping prisoners escape and then assisting him in stealing the ship—but what if Dash told his law-enforcer superiors that he had forced her to help him? Might her name be cleared? Headquarters might even assume he had forced her, based on her reputation and his newly revealed traitor status.

While he waited for her, Dash pulled up the recording of the chief’s message to replay. But a couple of minutes passed without a response. Had she heard him? Or been too focused on her problem to break away?

He unbuckled his safety harness, intending to go see her in person, but she was walking up the aisle through the passenger area. She looked at Aleksei sprawled across the back seats, his snores reverberating through the cabin, and continued past. In the climate-controlled ship, they had all removed their parkas, and she still wore her neon-green prison uniform. He’d torn his off as soon as he’d had a free minute, changing into a law-enforcer uniform he’d found that fit.

“Clearly, we need to make a shopping stopover when we pass near a space station,” Dash said, waving her toward the co-pilot’s seat. If there wasn’t a warrant out for her arrest, she might be able to amble in and use her banking chip without repercussions.

“I have plenty of clothing on my ship. My clothing.” There was almost an ache in her voice as she said that, and for emphasis—or simply distractedly—she plucked at the green sleeve with its canvas-like texture.

“I have something that might help with that. Assuming you’re still searching for Axton?”

“I have a list of likely places he might have gone, but yes, I’m still searching for his definite location.”

Dash nodded. “Let me know if anything I know after working with the man for two months might be useful. But first—” he held up a finger, since a speculative look had jumped into her eyes, and she appeared ready to take him up on that offer, “—have you eaten?”

He would happily answer all her questions after he knew the answer to that one.

“Uhm. No, I went straight back to start researching.”

“Aren’t you hungry? Or weren’t the rations on board acceptable for your dietary needs?” Dash knew there was nothing fresh or overly vegetable-dominated in the cabinets of boxed meals in the tiny mess, but there was more selection than those ration bars had offered.

“I actually didn’t look. I am hungry, but it comes and goes. I forgot.”

“Fortunately for you, I did not. I found the pilot’s secret stash, and I believe you’ll approve.” Dash leaned over and opened the bin between the seat and the hull that should have held a first-aid kit and a flashlight.

He’d actually been looking for the first-aid kit to smear some QuickSkin on the gashes he’d received days earlier from those robot creatures. Fortunately, after meeting with disappointment up here, he’d found a fully stocked kit in the lavatory. Here, he’d found other goodies. He plopped the first item into her hands.

“A large jar of peanut butter. Nearly full.” He recalled that was one of the ingredients in the Tammy Jammy bar she’d been eating that night on her ship, so he assumed she found it palatable. “And also these.” He handed her four vanilla-almond Tammy Jammy bars.

She’d been staring at the jar with round eyes, but they grew even rounder at the sight of the bars. She gathered the items to her chest and grinned at him. “You’re a wonderful human being.”

“Yes, I am. Don’t eat them all at once. I think you can die if you eat too much too soon after a fast.”

“Re-feeding Syndrome? That happened to prisoners recovered from concentration camps in Nazi Germany back on Old Earth and also after the mine explosions of Asteroid 7694X where the miners were trapped without food for over a month. But it shouldn’t be a problem after fasting for a mere four days.”

“Uh huh. Don’t stuff it all in at once.”

She twisted the lid off the jar, tore open one of the bars, and proceeded to dip the bar into the peanut butter and use it like a spoon to take a giant bite of both. She smeared half of it on her cheek in the process, and he did his best to stifle a smirk.

He cleared his throat and sternly said, “I see you’re going to heed my wisdom with the utmost diligence.”

“Peanut butter?” she asked with a full mouth and offered the jar to him.

He snorted but did stick his finger in for a wad. There were probably utensils somewhere in the ship, but it seemed like too much effort to go hunting around in the dim lighting. The rich nuttiness did please his taste buds after such limited offerings for the last week.

“While you’re dining, take a look at this.” Dash brought up the chief’s recording for her. “The message just came in.”

As soon as it finished, she said, “That’s interesting. You’d think it would be standard operating procedure to report in when you’re abandoning your ship to take over a civilian ship.” She looked at him.

“I don’t think the S.O.P. mentions that specifically, but yes, he should have reported both the Alliance attack and that our ship was too damaged to limp its way to Sherran Moon, much less make it all the way to Frost Moon 3. I wonder if he was embarrassed and hoped that Headquarters would be more lenient if he successfully completed his mission before reporting in his failure?”

Dash felt a little guilty accusing Axton of failure when he’d been the one flying the Truncheon 4 and intentionally maneuvering ineptly enough for the Alliance ships to win. But only a little.

“I suppose that’s possible. You know him better than I did.”

“But you think it’s something else?” He sensed that her mind had been wandering down a different path.

“I’m wondering if he saw my ship and planned from the beginning to take it. Did you ever poke into his thoughts during the days we were flying to Frost Moon 3?”

“No,” Dash admitted glumly. “I was worried he would sense me in there. Cyborgs sometimes receive training to better fight Starseers. The empire hasn’t ever stopped being concerned that Starseers might rise up and cause trouble again. But I should have risked it. If I’d known what he was planning, I could have avoided being dumped in that prison. We both could have.”

“Did he seem discontented with his job in the months you knew him?” McCall asked earnestly.

She seemed completely unwilling to join him in placing blame on his shoulders. Maybe she was too pragmatic to bother with things that wouldn’t make a difference going forward. He smiled, imagining she wouldn’t be the type to bring up past grievances in domestic arguments.

“Dash?” She quirked her eyebrows.

“Sorry, I was thinking of other things. Was Axton discontented with his job, you asked? Yes, but he was discontented with everything, so I’m not sure if that means much. The man was unbalanced, and I’m pretty sure he was stuck in law enforcement, a remote border-worlds route where he didn’t encounter others that often, mind you, after being booted from the Cyborg Corps.”

“He was. I looked him up.”

“Ah.” He wasn’t surprised she knew as much about Axton as he did, maybe more.

“He appeared to be a normal kid before he entered the fleet, and his first couple of years in, he received no complaints from his superiors. He volunteered for the Cyborg Corps, and it wasn’t until after the surgeries and hormone injections that he started having disciplinary problems and issues with controlling his temper.” McCall spread her hands. “From what I’ve read, some of the soldiers that become cyborgs are unscathed by the procedure, but most of them have some challenges. There’s a lot of tinkering that goes into turning someone into a super soldier full of synthetic bones and biomechanical implants, then ensuring the body accepts them while growing muscles into boulders on the side.”

“You’re not sympathetic to him, are you?” Dash asked, surprised.

McCall considered that for a moment. “I’m not unsympathetic. Mostly though, I’ve been trying to understand him so I can figure out where he might have gone. Like I said, my ship could be sold for ten years’ worth of a law enforcer’s salary, but it’s not worth so much that one could live in the lap of luxury on a tropical beach on Indra for the rest of one’s life. He would have to be relatively frugal, assuming he’s not sure what his prospects will be once he’s living off the grid and needs to avoid populated places with imperial spy boxes floating through the streets.”

Dash nodded, sensing from her thoughts that she’d already settled on a couple of likely spots and was simply explaining things to him so he would be in the loop.

“The border worlds are most likely,” McCall went on, “but that still leaves a lot of options. His Cyborg Corps record is locked up in files that even I can’t access, so I don’t know where all he visited during his enlistment—people have a tendency to go back to places they’re familiar with and remember fondly. I do know he doesn’t have any living family, so there’s nothing for him back on Perun—his home world. I’m guessing—and I fully admit this is a hunch—that he would want to find a place where he could fit in and call home. It’s possible for someone to go off to live alone in some remote wilderness, men especially being more suited for that, but he doesn’t fit the psych profile of a loner type, despite his anger issues. When he was on my ship, he stayed near the prisoners most of the time. To guard them, yes, but he also talked to one of them, however gruffly and grumpily, one who’d been in the fleet. It’s possible he missed the life he had there, the sense of belonging that soldiers often get after time spent on deployments together.”

“When exactly did you see him doing all this?” Dash asked. He didn’t doubt her, but he was fairly certain she’d hidden in her cabin most of the time he and Axton had been on her ship.

“I grabbed the camera footage from the cell so I could look up the prisoners. I also looked up you and Axton to make sure I hadn’t let impostors pretending to be law enforcers onto my ship.”

“So, you think he misses his fleet days?”

“He may. My understanding of the situation—I have a cyborg contact who added a few details—is that he was forcibly removed from the fleet. He did not leave voluntarily. So I’ve been thinking that he might want to settle down in one of the three cyborg colonies out there.”

Dash blinked. He’d never heard of such things.

“They’re off the grid in every sense of the term,” McCall explained. “Most people haven’t heard of them. One is in a jungle and two are up in the mountains, all well outside of populated areas. They have few amenities, but they’re private places where retired or medically discharged cyborgs can be among others who’ve undergone the same surgeries and military experiences, people who understand.”

“I didn’t think many cyborgs lived to retirement age.”

“Not many do. The empire uses them hard.” McCall dug out the netdisc she’d been using, produced a holodisplay, and set it on the console. “Here are the moons and the planet that house these colonies. This one happens to have a shipyard in the capital city about two hundred miles away. There’s a man who works the nightshift who buys ships without titles, then sets a team of androids to taking them apart, so he can sell the parts.”

McCall grimaced, and Dash could tell she was imagining her own ship being torn apart and sold off for parts. Given how new and well cared for it was, that would have been a tragedy even if she had no emotional connection to it.

“As I said, the cyborg colony angle is a hunch,” McCall said slowly, looking intently at… his nose. He wondered if she would ever grow to enjoy eye contact with him. Or maybe it was just that she was about to ask him to divert from their Alliance-base course, and she was nervous. “But would you be willing to fly to Selva Moon to check? On the chance he’s taking my ship there to have it sold for parts…” She swallowed, her distress obvious, even to a non-telepath.

He reached over and patted her hand. “Of course. We’ll go check out the moon.”

He pointed at her holodisplay, and a tiny icon enlarged, showing a sphere that was surprisingly lush green and blue for a moon that far out from any of the suns. He couldn’t remember if it had been terraformed or had geothermal heat sources. Outer Trason, the planet the moon orbited, had been significantly modified to support human and animal life. It had a large population that was friendly to the Alliance, but he didn’t think the same was true of the moon.

“This is the place with the colony in the jungle?” Dash asked.

“Yes.”

Dash imagined trying to tramp through a jungle to assault a compound of cyborgs and couldn’t help but wince in anticipation of pain. Much pain.

“Any idea how many cyborgs are in the colony?” he asked.

“There’s little on the sys-net about these places—it’s only because I’ve gone looking for missing cyborgs before that I’ve done the research and am aware of them. The Cyborg Corps, however, is a relatively small and elite unit, and since they’re sent on the most dangerous of assignments, a lot of the soldiers don’t survive their enlistment. Further, their life expectancies, due to all the tinkering, are shorter than average for humans, so there can’t be that many in these colonies.”

“So dozens instead of hundreds?”

“Likely.”

Dash scraped his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t been able to best Axton in a fight. Axton alone. If Axton now had dozens of cyborg allies who were as strong and fast as he was…

“You said you’ll divert?” McCall was watching his face, something she rarely did. But this mattered to her. A lot.

Dash blew out a slow breath. “Yes, but before I change course, let me ask this question. Would it make sense to take these non-combatants—” he pointed a thumb in the direction of the snoring man and the cabins, “—to the Alliance base first, then try to recruit some fighters with suicidal tendencies and go visit this colony with reinforcements?”

“Even if I thought Alliance fighters had a reason to help me, which I don’t, I’m worried my ship will be in pieces if we don’t arrive there right on his heels. We’re already a few days behind.” She grimaced, her expression bleak.

“I’d give them a reason to help,” Dash said earnestly.

His words did not alleviate her bleakness. If anything, she grew more distressed, and she started calculating ways to get out to the moon on her own and how long it would take.

“But if you think we can handle those cyborgs, I will take us straight there.” Dash leaned forward in his seat, fingers tapping at the controls. He didn’t know when it had started to matter so much to him that he not do anything to distress her, but it did.

“At least the climate in the jungle will be warmer than on Frost Moon 3.” McCall smiled, though she still looked strung out with worry.

“Will we be less likely to be eaten by ferocious predators?”

“Probably not.”

“What about ferocious cyborgs?”

“I haven’t heard of any of them being cannibalistic.”

“Well, that’s comforting. They’ll just smash us against the trees like Arkadian monkeys throwing coconuts.”

“I was thinking we could opt for doing something clever to defeat them rather than pitting our weaknesses against their strengths.”

“Oh?” Dash arched his eyebrows. “Do you have that cleverness planned yet?”

He glanced back, realizing someone was watching them from the shadows of the corridor in the back. His senses told him it was Walters. The young man stepped into one of the cabins as soon as he spotted Dash looking in his direction.

Had Walters heard about the course change? Would he rush to tell Rose? Well, Dash hadn’t intended to hide it from her. They all would have noticed sooner or later anyway.

“Let’s see if Axton is there first,” McCall said. “If my ship is there. Will you head to the capital first? I want to visit that shipyard and the port authorities to see if anyone has seen the Surfer. If Axton has already sold it, there wouldn’t be a reason to deal with him again.”

“That’s the best news you’ve given me.”

“I’d have to come up with a fortune to buy it back from some unscrupulous black-market dealer.”

“That news is slightly less good.”

“If it’s there and he’s there… we’ll figure out something.”

“You will. I’m positive of it. I’m just the pilot.”

She rested her hand on his arm. “Thank you, Dash.”

He also wasn’t sure when her voluntary touches had come to mean so much to him, but they had too. Perhaps because they were so rare. Perhaps because she was.

* * *

Now that they were on their way to Selva Moon, there was little for McCall to do. Which was good, she supposed, because she was tired. She didn’t know when she’d last slept except that it had been on an icy tundra with her arms inside her parka and her hands tucked into her armpits. It felt good to be warm again. She noticed someone had set the ship’s cabin temperature ten degrees higher than standard and that nobody was complaining. It also felt wonderful to be full. In the morning, she would look for real food, or something close to it, but the peanut butter and Tammy Jammy bars had sated her for now.

She smiled at the back of Dash’s head. She had plopped down into a passenger seat in the first row behind him, pulled her legs up, leaned against the wall, and was contemplating closing her eyes.

After Dash finished setting the ship on its new course, he went to the lav. When he came back, he sat in the seat next to hers.

“Still awake?” he asked quietly, his face in shadow. It was dimmer back here than up by the lights and indicators of the navigation panel.

“Yes.” Wondering if he had some new concern, McCall pulled away from the wall and leaned closer to him.

“I’ve been thinking about things.”

She glanced at the empty pilot’s seat. “It’s only been fifteen minutes since we talked.”

“Are you denying that a man can have deep and meaningful thoughts in fifteen minutes?”

“I suppose not. You do have that special mind.”

He grunted. “Hardly that.”

She tilted her head. “Why do you do that? Downplay your abilities?”

“Because they’re weak by Starseer standards, and I had people letting me know that constantly for the first twenty years of my life.” He spread his hand. “All right, technically it was from age eight to twenty. Starseer skills don’t manifest at birth.”

“Without your telepathy and your ability to manipulate minds, we wouldn’t have gotten out of that prison.”

“You’re the one who overloaded the grid.”

McCall shook her head. “We only got up to the control room because we were able to attack the guards, something the rest of the prisoners couldn’t do, thanks to that doctor’s ministrations. You were integral.”

“Mm.” The noise sounded dismissive rather than speculative.

“And you’re able to get me. That’s definitely an ability. Maybe even a gift.”

He snorted softly and looked away.

She hoped she hadn’t made him uncomfortable. Praise often made her uncomfortable or was something she was quick to brush away, for some reason always struggling to believe it was truly deserved. Maybe he was the same way.

“No,” he said slowly, “I’m not uncomfortable. I’m just… I don’t know.” He gazed down at the tacky blue-and-gray-square carpet that ran under the passenger seats. “I know my skills are useful at times. I don’t mean to say they aren’t. It’s just that I’ve spent my life lamenting what I lack. I guess it’s never occurred to me to appreciate what I have.”

“You should get over that.”

He laughed. “All right, Dr. Therapist. I’ll work on it.”

“Good.”

He gazed at her, his gentle smile just visible in the night lighting. “McCall?”

She remembered that he’d been thinking about things, whatever that meant. “Yes?”

“If I were to cut ties to the Alliance, would you have room for a pilot on your ship? Once we get it back?”

“I… I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

She was surprised he would suggest it. He’d made it clear how much the Alliance and fighting against bullies meant to him. And the empire was the biggest bully in the system.

“You’re not asking. I’m volunteering.”

“Dash…”

“If you say no, it’ll crush my soul,” he informed her. “And my ego. After all, you’ve made room for a stray dog and an android you helped make stray. I have at least as many skills as Junkyard.”

“But not as many as Scipio?”

“Probably not. Androids are handy. But I could take up less space than he does. I don’t have a ceramic egg collection. Or a lot of hats and suits. What you see is what you get.” He waved down his form. “You could store me in a closet.”

“Dash…” She had to fight not to laugh. This was serious, not anything to laugh about. But it was hard not to smirk, maybe because her body was happy it had thawed out and her belly was delighted to be jammed full of food that agreed with it.

“I don’t want you to give up your passion, what matters most to you right now,” she said. “But you would be welcome on my ship. And I’d give you more than a closet. There’s a foldout sofa in my art studio.”

“Ah, extreme luxury.” He grinned but sobered quickly. “As to what matters most to me, that’s what I’ve been thinking about. You see, I’ve become fond of this skip-tracer lady, and I don’t think she’s willing to give up her life to go into hiding with the Alliance, especially if it turns out her life—or livelihood—was never in danger, because a strange cyborg never sent a report.” He waved toward the comm panel. “Whereas I am rather flexible right now, being unemployed and on the run from the law. It wouldn’t have to be a permanent arrangement, mind you. I get that you’re a private person and don’t necessarily want people around all the time. It could just be a trial. I could take a leave from the Alliance, and we could see if we liked sharing the same space. And how we work together on more mundane things than breaking out of prison and battling robot predators. Like you finding delinquents and thugs and me beating them into submission and dragging them off to prison. Admittedly, that might be harder now that the law considers me a delinquent and thug.”

His expression seemed sad and wistful. Like he knew what he was proposing couldn’t work.

McCall closed her eyes, remembering her thought that she would like to collect him for her ship, and she wondered if he’d seen that in her mind. It had been a fanciful musing. She hadn’t truly believed he would want to join her. A trial, he’d said. That seemed a rational approach to living with someone. She approved. If he couldn’t be a bounty hunter any longer, he could find something else to do.

But wouldn’t he always wonder what the Alliance was doing? If they got serious and started attacking imperial targets, wouldn’t he want to volunteer his piloting services to help? Didn’t he want to fight to change the system for the better? Would inviting him to share her small life on her ship be a disservice to him?

“May I touch your face?” Dash asked quietly.

“Yes,” she said, pleased he had asked, that he somehow understood that she didn’t like surprises, that she liked time to prepare herself for even simple things.

He brushed her cheek with his fingers, then traced her jaw. It wasn’t… unpleasant. A little tingle even teased her nerves.

She remembered from the distant and dismal relationships she’d had in her youth that this kind of thing usually led to kissing, something she’d never been fond of. Would it be different with him? His gift—whether he thought of it that way or not, she would—let him understand her better than anyone outside of her own family. Maybe even better than they had. Maybe she would enjoy kissing him, though that seemed to be asking a lot. Talk of sanitation and diseases aside, she’d mostly found kissing sloppy and gross, and having tongues in her mouth about as appealing as eating tripe.

Dash snorted and lowered his hand. A surge of dismay filled her, and she lamented that her thoughts had made him pull back.

“Come here,” he murmured, pushing up the arm rest between them and lifting his arm.

Though she feared she would disappoint him, she leaned against him, glad that their moment together wouldn’t end yet. He brought his hand to her head, threaded his fingers through her hair, and kneaded her scalp. Now that felt nice. Even if it made her feel self-conscious that her quick wash-up earlier hadn’t involved time in the sanibox or shampooing her hair. But she wasn’t self-conscious enough to pull away. Any minute now, she would start thumping her leg on the ground like Junkyard when she scratched him on the side of his neck.

Dash puffed out a laugh. “Your mind is an interesting place.”

She was skeptical that was a compliment, but she mumbled a, “Yeah,” in agreement.

“I like it.” He kissed her on the temple and kept rubbing her scalp.

She looked toward his face and into his eyes and thought she read sincerity there. It made her want to do something that would please him, that would let him know she appreciated his—him.

“I’m going to kiss you,” she said.

He’d warned her, so it seemed fair to warn him.

“Go right ahead.” His eyes crinkled with humor. “I’ll keep my tongue to myself. Though I assure you it’s not gross or sloppy. It’s delightful.”

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

“At the least, it’s better than tripe.”

“That could be possible.”

They weren’t that far apart, a few inches, but it seemed to take a long time to lean in closer, to press her lips to his. But not because she didn’t want to, she realized, appreciating that he was smiling, that he seemed happy to let her take the lead. She couldn’t remember anyone else who ever had. But in the past, her partners had always been more interested in sex than she had. She had been willing to go along, because that was what couples did, but she’d always preferred the other things people did together in relationships, such as going for walks in the woods or reading books and sharing snippets with each other.

“Like novels?” Dash murmured against her lips. “Or could I share details of the schematics on the imperial bases we’re thinking of attacking?”

McCall blushed, embarrassed that he knew she was thinking about mundane things instead of experiencing primordial emotions of adoration and ecstasy, the way women in romance novels always did.

“I’m open to schematics,” she said, in case he was truly curious. “I could share quotations from reports on criminals I’m searching for.”

“I would find that interesting.”

“Good.”

She went back to kissing him, wanting him to enjoy it and not wonder what was wrong with her.

Dash smiled against her lips again, and for the first time, she had a sense of him in her mind. A deliberate telepathic sharing? Or an accidental one? His presence was so subtle that she would have missed it in a busier moment, but she sensed that he was enjoying himself. And being with her.

That made her feel content, like she was doing something right. Something normal.

Dash went back to massaging her scalp. That improved the kissing experience even more. For a while, her mind even turned off, something she’d barely known was possible.

Thoughts crept back in, however, when they went from kissing to snuggling, half-dozing in each other’s arms. McCall realized they hadn’t resolved their problem of what they would do after she got her ship back. Would Dash give up his dreams and come with her? Would they simply part ways, seeing each other infrequently when their paths crossed? Should she consider giving up the life she’d painstakingly built for herself over the years to go with him?

She looked up at Dash’s face, wondering if he was following her thoughts, but his eyes were closed and his even breathing suggested sleep. It was just as well. She’d never imagined herself as the kind of woman who would give up everything to follow a man, and she wasn’t sure she could envision it now, especially when his path, if he stayed on it, could only lead into danger. She’d had enough danger this past week to last her a lifetime, and she hoped she could find a way to get her ship back without storming a cyborg compound.

Still…

She reached up and touched his beard. It would be a shame to part ways with the first man to know what she was thinking—and to not mind how weird it was. Why couldn’t the universe be a little simpler? Why couldn’t—

A shadow moved in the aisle, and McCall jerked back. Dash stirred, his eyes opening in confusion.

“Get away from him,” a cold voice told her.

Walters stood with a blazer rifle pointed at the back of Dash’s head. Fear smashed against McCall like an icy tidal wave.

Dash lurched to his feet, spinning and reaching for the weapon.

But Walters jumped back, his finger tightening on the trigger. “Don’t!” he screamed, his eyes wild.

“What the hells are you doing?” McCall demanded at the same time as Dash raised his hands and said, far more calmly than she could have, “What’s this about, Walters?”

“It’s about you being a suns-cursed Starseer.” The weapon shook in Walters’ hands, and his finger was tight on the trigger.

McCall, terrified the man would accidentally shoot, wanted to ease out of her seat and find a stun gun. But she didn’t know where she had left the one she’d carried on the moon. Back in her cell? In one of the cabins?

“You’re mistaken,” Dash said. “Please put the weapon down. I’m the only pilot here.”

“Bullshit. I can fly. Well enough to get us back to the base. The base you don’t want to take us to. I heard you talking. You’re diverting to some moon. Why? So you can turn us all in? Or give us to other Starseers who can reprogram our minds and make us their slaves? Do you work for the empire? Do they?”

McCall looked over the seat backs, hoping to see someone who could help, but the shadows lay thick in the cabin, and if anyone else was back there, they did not stir.

“I’m loyal to the Alliance,” Dash said. “The same as you. What makes you think I’m a Starseer?”

“You got past the guards when nobody else could touch them. Then you read Aleksei’s mind. He told me so. He said nobody saw him go outside. There’s no way you could have known about the ration bars. Then I was watching when you took this ship.” Walters jerked the rifle toward the hull briefly, and Dash tensed, as if he might spring, but the rifle whipped back, aiming unerringly at his chest.

McCall remembered that Walters had been the only one to take down one of the robot creatures on his own. If he fired at Dash, there was no way he would miss, not at this range.

“One of the law enforcers opened the hatch for you,” Walters said, “and let you start firing at him. You tricked him with your mind, didn’t you? Are you tricking all of us now? Making us believe you’re on our side when you’re not?”

McCall patted in her pockets. All she had was the netdisc she’d been toting around. She pulled it out, but short of throwing it at Walters, she doubted it would be useful.

“Whatever I am,” Dash said, making his tone soothing, “I’m not a threat to you. I’m loyal to the Alliance, and I hate the empire. I always have.”

Did Walters’ eyes grow the slightest bit glassy? McCall had no doubt Dash was trying to manipulate him into lowering the weapon; she just didn’t know if it would work.

She tossed her netdisc across the aisle, hoping it would draw Walters’ attention, if only for an instant.

He didn’t notice it fly past in the dark, but he flinched when it clanged on the deck behind him and glanced over his shoulder.

Dash sprang, trying to rip the blazer from Walters’ hands as he smashed into him. Walters roared and kept his grip. They struck the seats on the other side of the aisle, then pitched to the deck in a tangle of flailing limbs.

The rifle went off, crimson energy flaring in the dark air.

McCall cursed and flattened to the deck as a beam shot past her shoulder. It scorched a hole in the hull. Three suns, would the fool cause a shuttle breach that would endanger them all?

“Let go,” Walters cried amid clanks and thumps. “You—”

The white nimbus of a stun gun flared in the aisle, and McCall lifted her hand protectively. But it faded without hitting her. The sounds of the fight also faded.

McCall rose to her knees and peered over the seat backs. Rose stood in the aisle, the stun gun in hand. She’d struck Dash and Walters with her shot, so both men lay unmoving, still tangled together on the deck.

“I guess we better hope we don’t need a pilot in the next twenty minutes,” McCall said, fighting for casualness.

How much of all that had Rose heard? Had she intended to stun both of them? Maybe she’d only meant to hit Dash. Maybe she believed everything Walters believed.

“Yes.” Rose lowered the stun gun.

McCall wished she were better at reading faces. Not that Rose seemed to be giving much away, even for the perceptive observer.

The blazer rifle was wedged between the men, but their grips on it were slack now. McCall edged forward, keeping an eye on Rose, and crouched to pull it away from them. She couldn’t imagine Rose deciding to shoot her, too, but she also wouldn’t have guessed Walters’ suspicious observations over the last few days would turn into this outburst.

“He heard about the course change,” Rose said. “Walters.”

“Ah.” McCall didn’t like that her quest was delaying the others, but if the group hadn’t broken out of prison, they would have been delayed even longer. “This should only take a few days. If Dash wants to drop me off on the moon and take you to your base, that’s fine with me. I can find Axton and my ship on my own.”

Which was true. Dealing with a colony full of grouchy cyborgs might be more difficult, but she would find a way. She always had.

Rose nodded. “Good.” She pointed over her shoulder. “I’m going to get a couple of men to drag Walters back to… It’ll have to be a cell, I guess. That was more than a civil protest or argument.”

McCall looked at the deadly rifle in her grip, then at the scorch mark in the hull. “Yes.”

As Rose turned to get her men, McCall blurted, “Will Dash be in trouble?”

Perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything, in case Rose hadn’t overheard much of the argument and didn’t yet know about Dash’s Starseer talents, but it was too late to retract the words. And McCall needed to know. She had come to care for him, and now she was worried on his behalf. She knew how carefully he guarded the secret of his special abilities and that it affected how some people saw him. Whether or not they would be willing to work with him.

“I’m not sure,” Rose said. “I can keep Walters out of Dash’s hair for the rest of this trip, but I can’t keep him from speaking. He’ll probably tell Admiral Walters when we get to the base.”

He would probably tell everyone, McCall thought glumly. The young man did like to hear himself speak. But the admiral sounded like the most problematic person. He was Dash’s boss, and presumably, he had the power to kick Dash out of the Alliance.

After what he’d said about how much being a part of it meant to him, her heart ached on his behalf.

17

“There she is. Selva Moon. It and its planet are the first inhabited worlds considered to belong to the border territory rather than the core.” Dash spread a hand toward the holodisplay where Selva’s blue and green sphere rotated below them. He suspected McCall knew more about the moon than he did, but he felt it part of his job as pilot to play tour guide.

She stood beside his seat, one hand on his backrest and one holding her netdisc as she followed whatever real-time news reports she was devouring now that they were in range of the moon’s satellites.

Dash appreciated her voluntary proximity to him and how comfortable they had grown with each other during the three days it had taken to fly here. He’d been trying to enjoy it and ignore the tension that had arisen between him and the Alliance people since Walters’ attack. And vocal outburst. Dash feared they all knew about his mental talents now and that he wouldn’t be welcome at the Alliance base once he dropped off his passengers.

Even though he’d contemplated leaving the organization to join McCall, he had imagined it being a voluntary choice and that he would be able to return if real fighting broke out and they needed pilots. The idea of not being able to fly with them because of some fluke of birth that he couldn’t control frustrated and distressed him.

McCall pursed her lips at something on her netdisc display, then looked at the image of the moon.

“Have you been here before?” Dash asked, forcing his mind back to the task at hand.

“Once. In part to look for a cyborg who owed people money and in part as something of a pilgrimage for Scipio.”

“Androids go on pilgrimages?”

“Since we were in the area, he wanted to visit the factory where he was made.”

“Is that normal?” Dash had never heard of androids having any interest in their origins or feeling kinship toward others of their kind. Supposedly, they didn’t feel anything. They were simply ambulatory computers. He decided not to share those thoughts with McCall.

“I’m not the best judge of what’s normal.” One corner of her mouth quirked wryly, but her expression soon faded to a more pensive one as she considered her holodisplay.

“Find out anything interesting yet?”

“I asked the owner of the shipyard and also the nightshift black-market fellow I mentioned if they’d seen my ship,” McCall said quietly.

She wasn’t an exuberant person by nature, but her tone was especially subdued now, so Dash could tell without touching her thoughts that she hadn’t heard anything good.

“They haven’t seen it?” he asked. “Or they bought it, scrapped it, sold off the parts, and are now lying?”

She winced, and he wished he had chosen more sensitive words.

“They said they haven’t seen it.”

“Do you want me to go down and talk to them?” Dash touched his temple to signify that his talking would be particularly thorough. Once again, he lamented that he couldn’t touch people’s minds from a distance, but then he remembered McCall’s observation that it was a gift to have the mental talents he had, even if they were weak compared to those of other Starseers. He vowed to try to remember that, to be pleased to have even a minor advantage in dealing with people, even if it might cause him to be booted from the Alliance.

“Hm, maybe, but I’m inclined to take their word for it. The owner is known for being honest, giving people good deals on new ships, and making decent offers when they turn in used ships. And Alfonzo, the black-market man, has a cheek muscle that tics when he lies. After forty years in the business, he knows half the system is aware of it, so he usually tells the truth. I offered him a reward if he can find any information on my ship’s whereabouts for me, but…” McCall ended with a helpless shrug.

The murmur of a conversation drifted up from the back row of passenger seats. Rose and two of the men sat there, talking quietly.

Rose hadn’t spoken much to Dash since he woke from that stun blast, and she hadn’t given him any flack about detouring, but he could sense urgency from her. Apparently, when she’d been captured, the Alliance had been ramping up to make some big moves against the empire, and she expected plans and preparations to be nearing readiness now. She was eager to get back to help. She might become more obstreperous if McCall wanted to check the cyborg colonies on other planets first. That would involve a week of flying around the system. Dash knew she was good at her job, but he also knew it could take a lot of time and investigative work to locate those who didn’t want to be found. There was a reason she was paid well.

“Will you fly over the cyborg camp?” McCall asked. “It’s on that southern continent there.”

“Bolika? It’s not heavily populated.”

“Hence its appeal to a group of people who don’t want to be bothered. There are some fishing villages on the coast but nothing major inland.” McCall swiped her finger through her holodisplay and brought up a set of coordinates and a map. “This is the location of the colony. At least it was two years ago. I flew by to make sure I’d found it before sending the location of one of its residents to the corporation looking for him.”

“We’ll check.” Dash set a course to take them down from orbit and toward the lush green continent. More than a hundred miles of ocean lay between it and the more populous equatorial continent to the north, the one where the shipyard and largest city on the moon were located.

“Be discreet. The last time I was here, they had some land-to-air artillery weapons.”

“Meaning they’re likely to shoot us as we fly by?” Dash tapped a button to power up the shields.

“It’s possible. It depends on how close we get.”

“We’ll have to get pretty close if we’re going to identify Axton down there.”

“I’m hoping to identify my ship parked somewhere nearby, ideally a few miles away so we can land and get it before the cyborg army descends on us.”

Dash winced at the notion of a cyborg army. Even unarmed, such a force would be terrifying. And it sounded like these people were armed. He imagined some of them, especially those who had retired from the fleet after twenty years of service, may have been permitted to take their crimson Cyborg Corps combat armor with them. Even firing the law-enforcement ship’s e-cannons, Dash wouldn’t count on being able to knock out a man wearing that stuff.

“What happens if your ship isn’t there?” he asked quietly, not glancing toward the Alliance people.

“It might not be. It would actually be surprising if my first guess led us to it and Axton.”

Dash knew she’d done more than guess, but he didn’t say anything. There were other ships in the atmosphere, launching from or landing on the main continent. He flew a circuitous route to avoid getting in their sensor range. Since their law-enforcement craft was stolen, he would have to be careful flying it anywhere close to civilization. Selva Moon wasn’t a heavily populated or policed core world, but there would still be an imperial presence and contingents of law enforcers in the major cities. The empire made sure even the border worlds weren’t left wholly to their own devices.

“If it’s not there, and you can drop me off in the capital—Argon—I would appreciate it.” McCall glanced over her shoulder. “I know you have obligations and other people waiting on you. I can continue my search on my own.”

Dash frowned. “I said I’d help you find your ship and deal with Axton, and I intend to.”

“You’re their only pilot.”

“They can take public transportation if they get antsy,” Dash said mulishly, though he knew they couldn’t, not really. They were all escaped felons, and there weren’t any public transport ships where people weren’t scanned as they boarded. Nor would public transport take them to whatever asteroids the Alliance had its bases in this month.

McCall smiled at him, a sad smile, and slid into the co-pilot’s seat to access the ship’s sensors.

Dash grimaced as he turned his gaze back to the air below them, the terrain features growing more noticeable as they descended toward the jungle continent. He’d started to think of McCall as a friend—a girlfriend—and had been enjoying getting to know her better these last couple of days of travel. His soul cringed at the idea of parting ways now.

“The sensors are detecting some buildings with solar panels collecting energy,” McCall observed, one hand surfing through the holodisplay, the other shaking her wrist so the charms on her bracelet jangled.

“The colony?”

“I believe so, and it looks like people are still there, that they haven’t moved it in the last couple of years.” She leaned forward in her seat. “I’m picking up a ship, the remains of one. There isn’t any power coming from it, and it’s mostly hidden by foliage.”

“Your ship?”

“I’m not sure.” She sounded doubtful.

“He might have thrown branches over it to camouflage it,” Dash pointed out.

“True.”

He glanced at the sensor display, getting the position of the ship, and flew toward it. He kept them low over the trees, avoiding the village for now in the hope that they wouldn’t draw attention. A forlorn hope, most likely, since cyborgs had, among their other upgrades, augmented hearing.

Foliage from trees buzzed and blatted as it hit the shielding under the belly of the ship. Dash looked from the sensor display to the route ahead. The dense jungle made it impossible to see the ground through the thick green canopy, but he spotted a small clearing ahead.

McCall leaned forward even more. She was right on the edge of her seat and looked like she was holding her breath.

Dash slowed down as they reached the clearing, noting trees that had been knocked down. Not by some storm or even a logger’s axe but by a ship crashing.

A ship crashing years ago, he decided, spotting a gray arrow-shaped craft half-buried in the earth. Vines grew all over the hull, as if to devour the craft or pull it down into the soil.

He could make out enough to discern the make and model. “That’s a law-enforcement ship. Or it was. It looks like it crashed years ago.”

McCall sank back in her seat. “Yeah.”

“Maybe your client found it was difficult to extract a cyborg from his colony.”

“It was a corporate client who probably sent in private security rather than imperial law enforcement, but the sensors are showing more than one wreck around here, so it’s possible many people have discovered that.” She fiddled with one of the charms on her bracelet and looked thoughtfully at the sensor display.

“Any recently landed ships around?” Dash asked.

“No. Nothing that isn’t powered down and half-buried. I can tell now that we’re closer.”

“So, your ship isn’t here.”

“No.”

“I guess it’s better not to find it than to find it wrecked against a wall of trees.”

McCall snorted, not precisely in agreement. “Let’s fly over the village.”

“Now that they’ve had time to hear us cruising about and ready their rocket launchers?” Dash asked, but he complied, taking them toward a larger clearing than any of those around the crashed ships.

“The shields are at full capacity, right? They can take a few hits.”

Dash stayed low as he guided the ship toward the clearing. It might have been smarter to fly higher so they would have more time to react to fire, but if they were going to identify individual people, it would be easier from closer to the ground.

Up ahead, light glinted off solar panels. Dash took the ship over open ground that had been cleared for crops and pens of livestock. Numerous small wooden houses dotted the area with a clump of larger communal buildings at the center. A few paths wound through the compound, though nothing as major as a road. A couple of large, brawny, white-haired men worked out in a field. Two others walked along a path coming from the jungle, each carrying a freshly killed animal over his shoulder. The animals looked to weigh hundreds of pounds, but the cyborgs carried them as if they were bags of potatoes.

All of the men looked toward the ship as Dash sailed over their compound. A couple of them turned to yell and gesture toward one of the communal buildings, a building with a flat roof and e-cannons mounted atop it. A cyborg was already up there, loading one of the artillery weapons.

“Time to go.” Dash veered back toward the trees.

“Wait, look.” McCall pointed toward a cluster of men working on building a house, the foundation recently laid. “Is that…?” She glanced at Dash, uncertainty in her mind.

“That’s Axton.” Dash recognized his hulking form at a glance.

Axton glowered at them—all the cyborgs did—and ran a few paces to snatch up a blazer rifle. He opened fire on the law-enforcement ship. The crimson energy bolts splashed against the shields as Dash flew toward the jungle.

He wasn’t worried about them. The e-cannons were another matter. They packed the power of—

“Incoming,” McCall said, watching the sensor display.

The ship shuddered as a huge white ball of energy slammed into their rear. A display popped up, warning them that shield integrity had taken a dip.

“I know, I know.” Dash guided the craft through evasive maneuvers as they flew off over the canopy.

The cyborgs fired several more blasts, but it grew easier to avoid them as the ship sailed farther away.

“You were right,” Dash said once they were out of the e-cannons’ range. “Do you feel triumphant?”

He could tell she didn’t. Pensive was the word he would have used.

“I was hoping to find my ship with him,” McCall said, and he sensed worry for Junkyard and Scipio in her thoughts again. “I’m afraid this means he already sold it. Or… worse.”

She rubbed her face, thinking again about how Junkyard might have been shot by now or dumped out and abandoned on the frozen tundra back on Frost Moon 3.

Hoping to alleviate her worries, Dash said, “There’s one person who knows.”

“Who? Him?”

“Him, indeed. If we question him, he’ll know where your ship and friends are.” This time, Dash wouldn’t hesitate to surf through Axton’s mind. Who cared if the cyborg figured out he was a Starseer? Who was he going to tell here? Monkeys and macaws?

“Yes.” McCall nodded slowly. “That’s the logical way to get answers, I suppose. From the source. The trouble is that I doubt he’s going to invite you or me over for tea. Or azidmar juice.”

“Is that the local beverage?”

“It’s a berry the size of a house that grows in the jungle.”

“I’m skeptical that house-sized food can taste good.”

“There’s a reason it’s not a popular export.” McCall drummed her fingers on the control panel. “All right, so how do we get him away from his buddies, who I assume are going to defend him, and get him to talk to us?”

“Drugs for the latter seem like the best bet. Maybe drugs for all of them. Can we get something in the city to spray on their village from above?” He arched his eyebrows. At this point, he would be surprised if McCall hadn’t read some books on medical and recreational drug substances.

“We can put it on our list of ideas, but there are two problems. Most sedative drugs need to be delivered at a relatively high dose—in hospitals, IVs are typically used. There are some aerosols, but the dose that one needs to inhale is significant. I think anything we dropped from the air would dissipate and be useless by the time it reached the cyborgs on the ground. Second, the hodgepodge of surgical and hormonal tinkering cyborgs endure alters their systems enough that drugs become unpredictable in them.”

“Ah. Too bad.” Dash liked the idea of air-dropping sedatives into Axton’s gaping gullet.

“We could have tried to lure him out somehow, but we’ve tipped our hand by flying over the village.” Her finger drumming turned into a pattern, like someone playing scales on a piano. “I’m not a large consumer of military history or tactics books, but I do know General Cinderlake said the best way to fight androids is with cyborgs and vice versa. I wish I had Scipio at my side right now. Even though he’s a personal assistant model, he’s as strong as any combat model. Not that one android would be enough to hold off dozens of cyborgs while we went in to collect Axton. We’d need an army of them.” She shifted from drumming to rubbing her chin thoughtfully, and Dash glimpsed an image in her mind of an assembly line full of androids.

“The factory that Scipio came from?” he guessed.

She puffed out a soft breath. “That’s what I was thinking of, yeah, but it’s just a fantasy. A single android costs as much as a ground vehicle. Buying an army of them isn’t feasible unless you’re the imperial government.”

“That’s a shame because an army of androids would certainly have the might to keep the cyborgs busy while we went in and confronted Axton. Maybe you can finance them. Does Selva Moon use the imperial banking system?”

She laughed shortly. “Yes, and you can finance androids, but if you go out and get them destroyed fighting cyborgs, it’s not like you can avoid paying the rest of the bill. I suppose, in theory, I have enough in savings to buy some androids, but that would deplete my bank account tremendously, and it’s possible I’ve already lost my ship…”

“Are you sure they don’t have a money-back guarantee? If they make combat androids and that’s what you buy, and then they fail to be effective battling your adversaries, you ought to be able to bring back your broken headless android—or androids—and get your money back.”

“Uh, right. You’d have to be the one to negotiate that deal with the seller. With your special mind powers.”

“I could try.”

McCall hesitated but shook her head. “I couldn’t do that to a business owner, knowing I’d be taking the androids out to get their limbs ripped off. There must be a simpler way we can do this.” She waved at Dash’s law-enforcer uniform, the one he’d found in a cabinet in one of the cabins. “What if we land outside of range of those e-cannons, walk into their compound, let everyone know Axton is a criminal, and then pretend we’re there to arrest him?”

“You’re assuming those cyborgs care that he’s a criminal. Further, you’re forgetting that I’m now a criminal, something Axton is intimately aware of. He’s going to know the law enforcers didn’t send me.”

“To address your first point, most of those men aren’t criminals. They fought for the empire in the Cyborg Corps because they believed in honor and doing their duty.”

“I object to the notion that you can be honorable while serving the empire.”

She waved her hand in the air. “What you believe and what servants of the empire believe are always going to be at odds. My point is that in their eyes, they’re heroes. I wouldn’t necessarily assume they would aid a criminal. I mean, they might, because he’s one of their own, but they might not. We could try the ruse, and maybe I can get a couple of androids as a backup plan.”

She winced, and he could see her imagining the digits in her bank account going into the negative.

“We don’t need an android for every cyborg in the compound, right?” she went on. “A handful could cause some trouble, maybe provide us the distraction we need.”

“What about my second objection?” he asked.

“Axton is out of the loop, so he shouldn’t know your current status. Also, we’re not positive you are considered a criminal right now, right? He didn’t report in to your headquarters, since he was, apparently, already thinking up his plan for pretending to die in a fiery crash.”

Dash made a skeptical noise.

“Or we could say you were having tendencies toward loyalty to the Alliance, but your superiors found out and sent you to one of the government facilities for mind altering.”

Dash shuddered at that idea, but he’d seen enough people come back from that procedure that he might be able to fake it.

“Now you’re back on the job with your thoughts freshly tuned and your loyalty to the empire absolute.” McCall smiled.

“Are you sure we can’t drop drugs on them?”

18

“Yes, financing is available on all our models, providing you pass a credit check and give us a flash capture of your bank account.” The well-dressed saleswoman with gold and diamond tri-sun earrings dangling from her lobes eyed McCall a little skeptically.

McCall had changed out of the prison uniform, but the clothing she’d found aboard the law-enforcement ship had been limited and none of it designed for women. She wore baggy gray trousers with a belt that looped around her waist almost twice, and a black shirt with the shoulder seams hanging halfway down her arms. At least the saleswoman hadn’t closed the door in her face.

“I would be happy to provide those things,” McCall said. It was something she could do easily enough since Selva Moon was tapped into the imperial banking system.

“And you said you’re interested in purchasing a combat model?”

The saleswoman led McCall through rows of androids on pedestals behind forcefields, some nude or dressed sexily—the personal pleasure models—and others in full battle-dress uniforms with the latest BlazTech rifles. Some of the androids were listed as examples of models currently available while others were from previous lines that could, for a substantial price, be recreated.

McCall spotted one from Scipio's line and froze, forgetting the woman’s question. The hair, the eyes, and the body were identical to his, though the model wore a butler’s uniform that Scipio would eschew for something more modern and fashionable.

A lump formed in her throat, the one that kept popping up every time she thought of him and Junkyard.

She supposed, in the worst-case scenario, she could have the factory make a new android from his model run. But it wouldn’t have any of his memories, and who knew if it would have the same personality. Oh, she knew such things were supposedly programmed in and identical from android to android within a certain batch, but she couldn’t help but feel Scipio had been somehow unique. Just like the rest of the occupants on her ship.

She smiled sadly.

“Ms. Richter?” the saleswoman prompted her.

“Yes,” McCall said. “Sorry, what was the question? Combat models? Yes, I’d like to see those.”

“Excellent. This way, please.”

As she followed the woman, McCall couldn’t help but glance back at the Scipio-like android. It occurred to her that she could have come here a couple of years ago, purchased one of the lookalikes, and arranged to have it deposited on the doorstep of the facility where she’d originally acquired Scipio. Maybe they even could have programmed it to have some of his memories and the same information that had made him valuable to his owners.

But that would have been trading one slave for another. Even if they were androids, McCall had a hard time not thinking of them as people, especially now that she had known Scipio for a couple of years. Androids ought to have the same rights as people.

“Just let me know if anyone suspicious starts poking around,” Dash whispered into a comm unit he’d scrounged up in the ship. She didn’t know who was on the other end.

He was trailing along after McCall, letting her do the talking to the saleswoman. Not that such things were her strength, but she was the one who had a bank chip with sufficient funds for this, and this had been her idea. She was glad Dash had been looking down at the cyborg colony at the same time as she, because she hadn’t been positive on her identification of Axton. She had a hard time recognizing faces of people she didn’t know well, and even with familiar people, a recent haircut or atypical clothing threw her off. Axton had changed out of his law-enforcer uniform and had been dressed in brown and tan clothes like the other cyborgs had worn, and the big men had all appeared similar to her.

“You want to know what qualifies as suspicious?” Dash asked in response to whatever the person on the comm had said. “Anyone in a uniform or anyone with an interest in our ship.”

They had parked the law-enforcement craft in the city instead of at the space base, where they had been certain someone would have run a scan on it. The ship was small enough that they had been able to tuck it behind construction materials on an empty lot about six blocks from the android factory.

“In here, you can see our combat models,” the saleswoman said, stopping in a new room. “We have three currently in production.”

“Any that are guaranteed to win against a cyborg in combat?” McCall asked, though she doubted there were any guarantees when it came to cyborgs.

“No, Ms. Richter.” The saleswoman didn’t look as startled by the question as McCall had expected.

But then, Selva Moon was known to be overrun with gangs and have more crime than a typical core world. Further, a lot of people feared the Cyborg Corps and its soldiers, even law-abiding imperial subjects. Maybe it wasn’t surprising that a businesswoman would want a bodyguard that could protect her if cyborgs ever came knocking at—or knocking down—her door.

“We can’t make guarantees like that, but the X-732s are extremely durable and have strength and agility greater than a cyborg. They come programmed in numerous hand-to-hand and armed-combat maneuvers. Would you like to see a demonstration?” The saleswoman patted one of the models on the arm—these were on the floor where they could be more easily examined—and the head moved slightly, its bland silvery eyes regarding her without expression.

Not like Scipio, was all McCall could think of the face.

Dash came up and touched her on the shoulder. He didn’t say anything with the saleswoman watching, but he widened his eyes, as if to convey some secret message. Had a suspicious person come by the ship?

“A demonstration isn’t necessary,” McCall told the saleswoman, assuming they didn’t have much time. “I’m familiar with your work.”

“Oh? Do you have one of our other models? If you’re a previous buyer, I can give you a three-percent discount.”

“Uh.” McCall didn’t want to explain that she’d acquired one of their models without purchasing from them. “I was actually wondering if you have a bulk discount.”

“Bulk?” The saleswoman’s eyebrows lifted. “What kind of bulk?”

“Will you show me your prices?”

“Certainly. If you’re ready to do business, please follow me into my office.”

McCall glanced at Dash, but he had turned his back and was muttering into the comm device again. McCall had better make this purchase quickly. She hoped she was doing the right thing. On the way to the city, she’d scoured the local sys-net for any news she could find on ships like hers, but there still hadn’t been anything. She was beginning to suspect Axton had sold the Surfer on the way to Selva Moon. Had there been time enough for him to stop at another planet or moon to do so? And still make it here and start building a house with his cyborg buddies? It didn’t seem so, but where else would her ship be?

Dash jogged to catch up to McCall as she was about to step into the woman’s office.

“Rose says an imperial spy box just spent a good minute hovering outside the hatch, then zipped off at top speed,” he said. “I think we can expect law enforcers to show up shortly and demand we give their ship back.”

“I’ll make this as quick as I can.”

“Are you actually going to buy some androids? Can you afford it? Enough to make a difference?”

McCall knew Dash was skeptical of her plan, but more than ever, she didn’t think they had time to come up with something else.

By coming into the city and being seen—damn, she hadn’t realized the empire’s ubiquitous spy boxes would be on a world this far out—she may have ensured they would soon be fighting the law as well as cyborgs.

* * *

“Rose,” Dash said, pacing as he waited outside the office for McCall to conclude her business. “I think you and the others better get off the ship. You don’t want to be inside if the law enforcers come. I may have to take drastic measures to keep them from getting the ship. I don’t want you caught in the cross-fire here or in the cyborg colony. McCall is determined to go back so we can question Axton. And I’m going with her.”

“Your loyalty to your friend is admirable,” Rose said over the comm device, “and I don’t begrudge her it, but please consider that there are more lives at stake here. If you return right now and take us to the base—”

Rose stopped speaking so abruptly that Dash looked down at the comm unit, wondering if she had ended the transmission. No, the channel was still open.

“Rose?”

She sighed heavily. “Four men in law-enforcer uniforms walked onto the lot.”

“Keep the hatch locked. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

“Won’t they have the ability to override the lock? This is one of their ships.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Dash said. “It’s a ship from Headquarters on Perun. That’s a long ways from here. But if nothing else, there’s some duct tape in a drawer by the lav.”

“How’s that going to help?”

“Be creative.” Dash closed the comm and turned toward the door, intending to tell McCall that they had to abandon this idea and get out of the city now, but it opened as he started to knock.

McCall stood there in her rumpled black and gray clothing wearing an expression somewhere between shock and bemusement.

“Are you all right?” Dash looked past her shoulder to the saleswoman, who stood at a desk wearing a very pleased smile.

“I made a purchase,” McCall said.

“I’m activating them now,” the saleswoman said. “Are you sure you don’t want to upgrade them with the combat-readiness package?”

Panic or maybe horror flashed in McCall’s eyes. All Dash could read from her was that she’d spent a fortune and was afraid it had been a mistake, that she was throwing her life’s savings away.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked quietly.

“The combat-readiness package means they would come with a bunch of extra daggers and blazers,” McCall said. “I don’t want to kill anyone doing this. Not even Axton. I just want a distraction so we can get to him.”

“I meant are you sure buying androids is a good idea?” Dash asked.

“Oh. No. But I did it anyway.”

The comm unit beeped again. Dash grimaced, certain Rose had more to report than trouble finding the duct tape.

The saleswoman glided past and clicked something that looked like the lock fob for a ground vehicle.

Several androids hopped off their pedestals and into the aisle. More than several. Dash gaped as he counted.

“Twelve? You bought twelve?”

“There was a big discount if you bought a dozen,” McCall whispered.

“Do you have that much money?”

His mind boggled. A dozen androids? She couldn’t have spent less than a hundred thousand tindarks. One could almost buy a ship for that price. One could buy a used ship.

“She’ll be extremely pleased with her purchase.” The saleswoman frowned at Dash, as if she feared he would try to talk McCall out of the deal they had made. “These are state-of-the-art, less than a month off the assembly line. You’ll find no higher quality android out there, even in the heart of the empire.”

“I’m sure of it,” McCall said. “We’re in a hurry. Can we take them now?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll have the certificates of ownership digitally transferred. Androids, you belong to this lady now.” The saleswoman gestured to McCall. “Do A and G Manufacturing proud.”

“Yes, ma’am,” twelve identical voices rang out at once. They saluted McCall as if they were soldiers.

She didn’t look like she knew how to respond, but she managed a curt nod. “This way, gentlemen. We have a mission.”

McCall waved for Dash to lead the way out of the building, and he, reminded of the beeping comm device, took off at a run for the empty lot.

McCall hurried after him, and the thuds of boots echoed off nearby buildings as the androids trotted in step behind her. Passersby on the sidewalks gawked at the group.

Dash checked on McCall, a little worried for her sanity. That was a lot of money to drop at once for a dubious reward. But she had recovered from her slight panic of a few minutes before, and he sensed determination from her now.

When Dash reached the empty lot, he was glad that the four law enforcers Rose had described hadn’t burgeoned into more. Two men were fiddling with the control panel for the ship’s hatch while two others stood guard. One noticed Dash immediately.

Four law enforcers were still a considerable obstacle, considering they carried stun guns and blazer pistols, and Dash didn’t want to hurt anyone, so he didn’t know how to approach this. Could he use his mental tricks on the highest-ranking one and somehow convince him they had made an error?

“Stop those men from getting into that ship,” McCall ordered.

For a confused second, Dash thought the order was for him—and unnecessary since that had been his intent. Then the androids sprinted by, almost knocking him over with the breeze of their passing.

One of the law enforcers shouted a warning to his comrades. Two opened fire as the androids stampeded toward them. One man had his stun gun in hand, and the blast struck an android in the chest harmlessly, doing no more than if he’d fired the weapon at a boulder.

Another law enforcer used his blazer, but his android target anticipated when he would fire it and flung himself into a forward roll. The orange energy bolts sizzled past two feet above him. The android leaped to his feet and hoisted the enforcer into the air before he could shoot again. One of his cohorts did the same to the officer who’d fired the stun gun.

The two law enforcers who had been working on the locked hatch sprang away from the herd of androids. They didn’t draw their weapons. They sprinted off down a back alley, one tapping an earstar comm device draped over his helix.

“We’re going to have more company soon,” Dash said, coming to a stop near the two androids holding the officers over their heads.

The men kicked and flailed but couldn’t reach their captors.

“That sounds like a good reason to leave,” McCall said. “Androids—uhm, you’ll have to give me your names soon—please throw those men…” She looked around, then up. “Onto those roofs.”

“I am designated as J-2923,” one of the androids announced, then hurled his man onto the three-story roof adjacent to the empty lot.

Dash gaped as the law enforcer sailed through the air, flailing and cursing. Tiny hard candies fell out of his pocket and rained to the asphalt.

“I am designated as J-2924,” the other android with an officer said and gave his burden the same treatment.

“Catchy names,” Dash commented as he opened the hatch.

“We’ll come up with something better later,” McCall said.

Later? How long did she intend to keep these androids? Could she return them if they survived the cyborg encounter? Get some of her money back?

“How are you going to tell them apart?” Dash pulled open the hatch, surprised by a ripping and suction sound that accompanied the movement.

“I’m not sure. Tattoos, maybe.”

Torn strips of duct tape hung from the hatchway with two of the Alliance men inside holding rolls of the stuff.

“That might have worked better if the hatch opened inward,” Dash said.

Rose, who stood behind the men with her arms over her chest, said, “I thought so, too, but thought perhaps you, as the pilot, knew something I didn’t.”

“I promise I know very little you don’t, Professor.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “So much for the notion that street smarts have value.”

“I thought I told you to take everyone and clear out of here,” Dash said, ignoring the dig.

“There wasn’t time before the authorities showed up.”

“Well, there’s time now. You better clear out. After the new recruits come in, that is.”

Dash waved for everyone to follow him inside, but it wasn’t until McCall made the same gesture that the androids trotted into the ship, again running in sync. The Alliance team skittered back with wide eyes to make room for them to pass. The androids weren’t quite as hulking as the people chosen for the cyborg program—they didn’t need brawn to have strength, after all—but they were still on the large side for humans, well over six feet tall and broad of shoulder. The ship seemed much smaller after they were packed inside.

“Must be nice to have your own personal army,” Dash remarked to McCall.

“I… haven’t decided yet.”

“If this works and we get your ship back, what are you going to do with them all?” Dash decided not to point out that half of them might be damaged beyond repair in the fight ahead or that he’d also seen cyborgs throw people thirty feet in the air.

“I’ll figure something out. I suppose if I had aspirations to lead a mercenary army, it could start with them. Are there precedents for that?”

“You’d have to tell me. I’m sure you’ve read more history books than I have.” Dash squeezed past the androids and headed for navigation.

“Androids are relatively recent, historically speaking.”

“Androids were invented on Old Earth in the early twenty-first century and had a place on the original colony ships that traversed deep space to eventually settle in the Tri-Sun System,” one of the androids spoke up. “It did take many centuries for humans to regain the ability to manufacture such complex compu-organisms once they landed on the various habitable planets, as those early colonists struggled for basic survival for many generations, but androids were once again created in time. They have been gaining in popularity in the last two hundred years as they have grown more affordable to produce. I am designated J-2919.”

“He’s older than the others,” Dash said from the pilot’s seat, his hands guiding the ship into the air. “That’s why he knows more.”

“It is true that our numbers denote the order in which we came off the assembly line, but we were all programmed with the same information and thus none of us has more knowledge than the others at this juncture in our existence.”

“You can name that one Chatty,” Dash told McCall as she slid into the co-pilot’s seat beside him. “Or Garrulous. I don’t think you’re going to need a tattoo to tell him apart from the others.”

She smiled faintly, but that same determination he’d noticed in her before burned in her eyes now. She gripped the sides of her seat and stared at the holodisplay, as if she could will the ship to get out of the city faster.

Dash had no problem with that. He swept over the rooftops, amused at the two enforcers banging at a locked access door to a stairwell, and headed south again, hoping to escape the continent before more law enforcers caught up with them.

19

McCall realized, as the ship sailed low over the jungle canopy once again, that she hadn’t stopped to purchase any drugs to use on Axton. Neither sedatives nor truth serums. Not that she would have known where to buy them on Selva Moon.

She just wished they had them. What would she do if she managed to get Axton by himself to question? Her stun gun wouldn’t do anything to convince him to talk. She hoped Dash could telepathically find the answers she sought.

“Are we trying the law-enforcer ruse?” Dash asked as they flew closer to the compound.

The suns had set, and twilight blanketed the jungle. McCall didn’t know if that would make it easier or not to single out Axton.

“Let’s give it a shot,” she said. “If we can avoid starting a war and damaging my new friends, that would be ideal.”

“Friends?” Dash raised his eyebrows as he looked back at the androids sitting side by side in the rows of passenger seats.

McCall always had a hard time thinking of anything sentient as property or a thing, and she doubted she could start now. “Friends,” she said firmly.

“Just so long as they know we may need them quickly when we need them.”

“I’ll tell them.” McCall was certain the androids could hear the conversation and already knew. “Can you find a spot to land far enough away that the cyborgs won’t hear us coming?” She thought of the roar of the engines and feared someone with enhanced hearing would detect the noise from miles away—and run up to that rooftop to man those e-cannons.

“I think we may have to take a direct approach. Unless you want to crash, there’s nowhere to land but in the fields the cyborgs keep cleared of the jungle foliage.”

McCall winced at the idea of setting down in plain sight and so close to the cyborgs.

“Sorry, but we need a flat area larger than this ship, and it doesn’t look like there’s anything for miles and miles in any direction.”

“What about those crash sites?”

“Those ships mowed down some trees as they struck down yes, but there were still stumps and all manner of undergrowth. We couldn’t land on that.” Dash smiled at her. “Think of it this way. If the cyborgs rush out firing at us, your android army will be close at hand.”

“Twelve androids don’t constitute an army.”

“A legion?”

“Legions denoted major units in Ancient Rome on Old Earth. They typically consisted of three to six thousand infantry soldiers and one hundred to two hundred cavalry troops.”

“So…” Dash waved to the androids. “Not a legion?”

“A squad at best.”

“Disappointing.” Dash held his hand over the controls. “I need to make the decision soon. Do we land in their compound?”

McCall blew out a slow breath. “Yes.”

She didn’t see that they had another choice, not when time was of the essence. Those law enforcers back in the capital city would have reported in by now, and satellites and ships might already be hunting for the stolen craft.

“Do you want me to go out alone?” Dash asked. “You’re not going to pass as an officer in that baggy clothing.”

“No, this is my fight.” McCall wondered if it might go better if Dash didn’t show himself at all. Would cyborgs be less likely to brutalize her if she walked out alone to talk with them?

Maybe cyborgs in general, but she wouldn’t count on Axton treating her well. She could walk out with her android squad at her back, but she didn’t want to tip her hand.

She hoped the cyborgs let them land without firing on the ship. There was no guarantee since they’d fired earlier without any attempt at communication.

McCall looked toward the rear of the passenger area where several of the Alliance people were looking back at her. Dash had offered again to drop them off somewhere, but they’d all decided to stay, not wanting to be abandoned on some moon with no way to get off. She sensed, too, that they no longer trusted him fully. Maybe they believed he would leave them behind to ensure nobody learned his secrets.

Whatever their reasons for staying on the ship, McCall felt guilty for involving them in this and wished there had been another way. Maybe she should have left the ship in the capital and found transportation to the jungle on her own. Was she being selfish for keeping Dash here?

“All right, but I’m with you.” Dash must have sensed her hesitancy to include him—any of them. He looked over at her, his expression fierce.

Even though she hated taking the risk that he would be hurt—or worse—she appreciated his desire to help her. She wasn’t sure what she had done to win his loyalty, but she was glad not to be out here alone.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“You’re welcome. Taking us in.”

McCall gripped her stun gun and nodded.

A few lights came into view but not many. McCall bet the satellites couldn’t find this compound from space. She felt fortunate she’d been aware of the cyborg colonies already, or it would have taken her much longer to find Axton.

As the ship settled into a field close to the communal buildings, several doors opened, and cyborgs ran out. One man raced toward the stairs that led to the rooftop e-cannons.

“Better hurry and get them talking before they start shooting,” McCall muttered, her heart already pounding against her ribcage.

As she jogged toward the hatch in the rear, Dash waved for Rose to come to navigation. “Wait for us to get out, and then press this to raise the shields. You’ll have to lower them again if McCall bellows for her androids but better to have them up for now. In case they start firing.”

“Understood.”

“I have a comm unit,” McCall said as Dash joined her in the back. “I won’t need to bellow.”

“Oh, trust me. You’ll bellow if cyborgs start firing at us.”

He hit the button, and the hatch opened, the strong earthy scents of jungle foliage wafting in. McCall stepped toward the exit, but Dash hurried to go out first.

“Stay behind me,” he said, hopping out onto the field, a blazer rifle in his arms, though he was careful to point it at the ground for now.

McCall, her stun gun in one hand and the comm unit in the other, hopped out after him.

Six hulking men ran toward them, blazer rifles of their own in hand.

One cyborg was missing an arm, one ran with a limp, and one had burn marks covering half his face with a small device flashing green embedded in his temple. The two men in the lead, one white-haired and one gray, appeared to be hale retirees, but McCall abruptly had the feeling she would be picking on these people if she set her androids on them. Yes, they had fired on the ship earlier, but the ship had also been snooping. If she could figure out a way to get Axton out without a fight, she would.

Dash stepped forward. He was the one who had to do the talking if they stuck with her ruse.

“Good evening, veterans,” he said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and lifting his hands, not shrinking back even though the cyborgs fondling their weapons looked anything but friendly. “I’m Deputy Arjun Deshmukh. Feel free to call me Dash. I apologize for intruding on your community, but a cyborg who recently joined you has stolen a ship and faked his own death, apparently believing the law enforcers wouldn’t figure out what happened and come after him.”

“Axton told us about you,” one of the leaders said, the gray-haired man. He had a stony face and cold dark eyes. “He said you’re the criminal.”

“That’s incorrect. I am—”

“You were his pilot and betrayed him to the Alliance.”

The hulking cyborgs stepped closer. McCall didn’t need to be an expert at reading people to know she and Dash were in trouble.

Should she jump into the conversation and try to help him? Or trust that he was better at influencing people? She couldn’t tell if he was attempting to sway the leader, but he was gazing straight into the big man’s eyes.

“I did make mistakes and allow myself to be swayed by anti-imperial sentiment,” Dash said, speaking intently to the leader and not glancing at the others, “but I was shown the error of my ways. I understand now that the empire is here for the good of us all and that only a fool would fight against it.”

Someone in the back snorted, making McCall wonder if these cyborgs, who had chosen to live here in isolation, were truly imperial loyalists. Maybe twenty years of fighting in the Cyborg Corps and dealing with the side effects of their surgeries had left them bitter and estranged.

The one-armed man looked at McCall.

“I’m just here for my ship,” she told him, in case discussing the facts would appeal more to them than talk of patriotism. “Honestly, I don’t care about the rest. I’m a skip tracer by trade, but I’d be happy to forget I know Axton lives here now, should anyone ever come looking for information on him.”

Dash frowned at her. “I am a deputy law enforcer. I can’t simply forget I saw a criminal who betrayed his own organization as well as the empire.”

She knew he was playing the part she’d come up with for him but didn’t know if the cyborgs cared about it and wondered if it might be time to abandon the ruse.

“What if I paid you to forget?” she asked Dash, raising her eyebrows.

Maybe the cyborgs would find them less threatening if they seemed to be at odds with each other. Not that they appeared particularly threatened now…

“I am an honorable and duty-bound imperial law enforcer,” Dash said. “Er, how much?”

“We can discuss that later.” McCall faced the leader. “We just want to talk to Axton and find out what he did with my ship.”

“It’s not his,” Dash added, locking eyes with the leader again. “He can have his life here but not with money taken from the sale of a ship that doesn’t belong to him.”

McCall almost asked what Axton needed the money for, anyway, when this community didn’t look like it made many purchases from the outside world. But the leader appeared slightly glassy-eyed as he stared back at Dash.

“Starak,” he said slowly to the other older man at his side. “Go see if—”

A blazer rifle squealed, and crimson light flashed as a bolt slammed into Dash.

McCall screamed. Dash tumbled back against the hull of the ship, gasped, and flung a hand across his chest.

“Get that traitor out of here,” Axton roared, stomping out the doorway of one of the houses with his rifle ready to fire again.

“Need backup,” McCall bellowed toward the open hatch of the ship as she sprinted toward Dash.

Fear clutched her heart like a cyborg’s fist. Three suns, had that been a killing blow? She couldn’t lose Dash. She’d just found him, damn it.

The androids stormed out and sprang at the cyborgs with impressive speed. But the cyborgs had impressive speed, too, and they leaped into action immediately.

Dash dropped to his knees as he sucked in pained breaths, his eyes squinted shut. McCall gripped him, wishing her support could help him. His hand shifted to clasp hers, and she saw the scorch hole in his uniform and knew the bolt had burned straight into his shoulder.

Not a killing blow, she told herself, struggling to focus on the danger they were still in instead of his injury. At least for now. Would he be able to fight?

“I’m fine,” he bit out even though he clearly wasn’t. “We have to get Axton.”

McCall hesitated. The idea of chasing after a trained cyborg with only her stun gun sounded ludicrous, but if he ran off into the jungle, she would never see her ship again. Or Junkyard or Scipio.

“I’ll get him.” She jumped up.

Before she’d taken a step, an android was hurled ten feet and slammed into the hull of the ship less than two feet from her. The blow left a dent in the hull—and in the android.

Utter chaos had broken out, and an android threw his foe in another direction, the cyborg roaring as he sailed into a compost pile.

Dash forced himself to his feet and gripped McCall’s arm. His eyes were still tight with pain, but he said, “We’ll get him.”

Skirting the fight, Dash ran toward the building Axton had come out of. McCall hurried after him. His left arm hung limp as he ran, but he retained his grip on his blazer rifle, and his stride was as determined as McCall’s.

Axton no longer stood in the doorway. Had he run off into the jungle or to some other building? Or was he waiting inside that one to snipe them as they came into view?

“Should we try a back entrance?” McCall asked as they drew near.

Behind them, more cyborgs were streaming out of buildings. Blazer rifles squealed as men yelled and cursed, and McCall feared her androids would soon be pummeled into thousands of worthless pieces.

Not answering, Dash sprinted to the front doorway. He dove through, rolling across the floorboards and out of McCall’s sight.

Crimson bolts lit up the darkening night as they zipped out through the doorway. Some must have hit the wall inside because wood exploded outward.

Dash roared, and McCall, crouching outside, heard him returning fire. Not seeing herself duplicating his dive, she ran around the corner of the building. She would look for a back entrance.

A crash sounded inside, and she hoped she would have time to find it. Dash wasn’t a cyborg or an android. Just a normal human being with a few mental talents, now in a fight against someone with the strength of a tank.

McCall found a back door. Thankfully, it wasn’t locked. Not that someone would be insane enough to break into a cyborg’s home to steal something.

She slipped into a dark kitchen and had no trouble hearing the crashes and shouts coming from the front of the building. She patted her way toward a hallway she could barely make out in the gloom.

“What did you do with her ship, thief?” Dash yelled.

“You dare question my honor, you Alliance traitor!” Axton yelled back.

At least McCall knew Axton was indeed the one they were fighting.

“Leaving the empire isn’t dishonorable. Stealing from an innocent person is. Did you already sell it? What did you do with it?”

“Screw you.” A thunderous crash followed Axton’s words. It sounded like an entire wall had been knocked down.

McCall rushed down the hallway, fingers tight around the grip of her stun gun. Axton wasn’t in combat armor. The weapon should be enough to take him down.

She reached a large gaming room and spotted a giant hole in a side wall. Dash lay on his back, his hands up, his rifle nowhere in sight. Axton stood above him, prepared to smash a table down onto his chest.

McCall fired. Her stun bolt struck Axton in the back as he hurled the table down, and she cried out, terrified she was too late.

But Dash rolled to the side as the heavy piece descended. It clipped him in his already-wounded shoulder, and he cursed in pain, but most of the table smashed against the floorboards. Wood shattered into dozens of pieces. The stun worked, and Axton pitched forward, landing amid the carnage.

Panting, Dash collapsed on his back, grabbing his shoulder again.

McCall ran to him, pausing only long enough to make sure Axton truly was unconscious, then dropped to her knees beside Dash.

“Good,” Dash said. “It worked.”

“What?” She glanced at his wounded shoulder.

“Me distracting him while you sneaked up from behind and stunned him.”

“Did you know that’s what I was going to do?”

“I was hoping for something along those lines.”

She patted him on the chest. “I’m glad it worked.”

“No kiss for a wounded warrior?” Dash asked.

She couldn’t believe he truly had that in mind. Who wanted lips all over them when they were in excruciating pain?

“We still have to figure out how to get the location of the Star Surfer from him.” McCall eyed the large unconscious man, wondering if she and Dash were strong enough to carry him back to the ship. And could they get past the battle raging outside to reach it? Her poor androids were still engaged with the cyborgs, but she dared not call them off. She couldn’t let the cyborgs race over and carry Axton away before she could—

“Once we know that, then do I get a kiss?” Dash asked.

“Yes. I won’t even make you rub my scalp for it.”

He puffed a laugh. “I do that because you enjoy it, not because you make me. Also, your hair is soft and tickles my hand.”

“I’m glad your flesh finds my hair appealing, but this isn’t the time to discuss it. Can you get up?” She knelt back, offering her hand.

“Yes, but I thought I’d first tell you that your ship is at Gregor’s Active Paint not three miles from the android factory we visited.”

“He told you?” McCall gaped at him, uncertainty mingling with hope in her heart. Was that truly where the Star Surfer was?

“The location flashed in his mind while I was questioning him. And I’ll have you know it’s extremely difficult to use your telepathic skills while a cyborg is hurling furniture at you.”

“I… You’re wonderful.” She bent down and kissed him.

His mouth tasted of wood dust, and his lip was swollen, but he grinned and returned the kiss, gently brushing her cheek with his fingers.

“Much better,” he whispered, appearing content as she drew back.

“You’re a strange man, Dash.”

“And you’re a strange woman.”

“Yes, I am.”

“That I adore.” He beamed another grin at her, but it turned into a wince as he rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. He had to grip the wall to keep from toppling back down again.

McCall stood close and offered her shoulder. “Do we leave him here?”

Dash frowned down at Axton. “I’m not truly a law enforcer anymore, or I won’t be when they figure out everything I’ve done these last couple of weeks, so it’s not my job to arrest him. He may be less bitter and less likely to come after us if we leave him here. Unless you feel some need for revenge?”

“No, I do feel a need to retreat while some of my androids remain in one piece.” McCall grimaced at the torn-up ground near the ship, the men and androids still battling.

None of the cyborgs were glancing in this direction. Did they know Axton was down? That they didn’t need to defend him any longer? They kept cursing and leaping into battle, like Old Earth berserkers that didn’t know or care if they were winning or losing.

“Let’s go then,” Dash said. “Get on the ship before calling the androids back. We’ll see if we can slip away without losing them.”

McCall let Dash lead again, following him toward the ship and again taking a circuitous route so the combatants wouldn’t notice them. She hoped.

McCall did pause when she had a clear shot at a cyborg. She fired her stun gun, clipping him on the leg. He whirled toward her with fury in his eyes, and she feared she’d made a mistake, that the glancing blow wouldn’t be enough to knock him out.

The cyborg snarled and ran three steps toward them, but then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he tumbled to the ground.

“Hurry,” Dash urged, pausing to look back. “They lowered the shields to let the androids out, and it doesn’t look like they raised them again, so the hull has taken some damage. We need to get inside before it takes more.”

Despite his words, he waited for McCall to catch up with him before running toward the hatch. She sprinted into the ship, glad to escape the sounds of blazers firing and flesh smacking against synthetic flesh. Someone cried out in pain—a cyborg, since androids felt no pain—and she winced, regretting that they hadn’t been able to get to Axton without starting a battle.

“Did you find him?” Rose asked as Dash charged past her on the way to navigation.

“We got what we came for.” Dash sprang into the pilot’s seat. “McCall, call your androids in and be poised to close the hatch on any cyborgs that try to follow.”

“On it.” McCall raised her voice, hoping the androids with their better-than-human hearing would hear her order over the fighting. “Androids, back to the ship!”

They obeyed instantly, turning from their battles to sprint for the hatch. Unfortunately, the cyborgs reacted quickly too. By now, they were riled and angry, and a few faces contorted with rage locked onto McCall as she stood inside the hatchway, fingers hovering over the controls.

Three androids raced past her, jumping into the ship. But a cyborg with a hatchet came after that. She fired her stun gun twice. He dodged so fast the white bolts almost zipped past him, but one caught his arm, the nimbus flaring up it and across his torso. His steps stuttered, but he hefted the hatchet to throw. McCall fired again, then jerked herself behind the protection of the hull.

The hatchet spun through the hatchway and slammed into the ceiling, embedding itself in the tiles.

Her heart pounding, McCall eased one eye and her stun gun out in case she needed to fire again. But her third shot must have hit the cyborg more fully. He lay on ground churned from dirt and grass to mud in the battle.

More androids jumped over the fallen cyborg, some carrying their comrades. One carried an android over his shoulder and the same android’s arm in his hand.

A cyborg fired a blazer at the rearmost android’s back, but he was still able to spring inside. He collapsed on the deck beside McCall, a smoking hole in his back.

A cyborg outside lifted a rifle at the hatchway, at her, but as she jumped to the side again, he lowered it without firing. It was the gray-haired leader. His expression was one of disgust, but he seemed to realize there was no point in continuing to fight. The intruders were leaving.

The android on the deck was the last one. McCall hit a button, swinging the hatch down before any cyborgs could spring inside after her.

“Go, Dash!” she called.

From the way the ship lurched into the air, she knew he’d been waiting for that command for ages. Or at least fifteen seconds.

“Shields are up,” Dash announced as they soared toward the sky. “But they’re not firing.”

“Good.” McCall sank to the deck, her shoulder against the hull. She was mentally exhausted and wanted nothing more than to find her ship, hug her friends, and then hole up in her cabin for days to read and paint without interacting with any other human beings. “Good,” she murmured again.

* * *

Even though Dash assured her he’d seen the truth in Axton’s mind, trepidation filled McCall as she walked up to the front of the hangar-sized paint shop. What if her ship wasn’t here? What if the painter had decided to betray Axton and sell it? What if—her lips twisted in distaste—it had already been painted and was beige or gray or something hideously boring?

She supposed she could handle that scenario, assuming she could scrounge up the money to have it repainted again after she had spent almost everything she had on androids. Dear suns, what was she going to do with those androids now? Dented and scorched, they were waiting in an alley near where Dash had dropped them all off. She would lose half her investment if she tried to sell used and damaged androids back to the factory.

Shaking her head, McCall pressed the buzzer for the door. Would anybody be in this late at night? Dash had suggested she wait until morning and the shop’s regular business hours, but she couldn’t risk delaying any longer. Besides, he and that ship full of Alliance people were all in danger as long as they were here in the city. Someone would inevitably find the vessel again and send more than a handful of officers to recover it.

A twenty-something, groggy-looking man with hair like an untrimmed shrub answered.

“I’m McCall Richter, the rightful owner of the purple Comet Cruiser 559 that a criminal brought in to have painted,” she blurted, trying to peer past his shoulder as she spoke. Was it in the bay? Had he started painting it yet?

A thunderous ah-roo ah-roo rang out from behind the man.

McCall’s mouth dropped open. She knew that canine sound.

“Junkyard?”

The young man opened his mouth to speak, but a large mongrel dog ran past, knocking him out of the doorway. Junkyard collided with McCall, and she flung her arms around him to keep from falling. It didn’t work, and they went down in a heap on the walkway. Junkyard wagged like a can in a paint mixer, smothering her as he slathered her with his tongue.

“Junkyard!” Normally, she wouldn’t encourage him to knock her on her ass, but she was grinning too hard to care. She patted him clumsily around the wagging and licking.

“Richter, you say?” The man had recovered and stood in the doorway again. “Did you get my message?”

“What message?” McCall managed to push Junkyard aside long enough to clamber to her feet.

He wouldn’t let her move very far away and plastered himself to her hip, still wagging fiercely. She was so pleased to see that he was well—maybe he’d lost a few pounds, but he appeared healthy overall—that she had a hard time focusing on the man’s words.

“Yes, I sent one, what, the day before yesterday? I wasn’t sure where in the system you were, but I’m glad you came. I was a little scared to delay much longer. You don’t piss off cyborgs, you know. But then, you don’t want to piss off dogs that weigh more than you either.”

“Uhm, can you explain what’s been going on? From your point of view? I haven’t gotten any messages—wait, I suppose I could have. Did you send it to my business address?” Three suns, she hadn’t checked that. She had an incognito address she used for communicating with anyone that had black-market dealings or anything less than scrupulous, and that was the one she had been monitoring.

“I guess. It’s what’s on the documentation in the NavCom compartment on your ship. It is your ship, right?” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder and into the building.

“Absolutely.”

“I figured only a girl would paint her ship purple.”

“What color did Axton want it painted?” she asked, not that it mattered. But she was curious.

“Black.”

“Ew.”

“I agree. Shows an utter lack of creativity.” The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Greg.”

McCall looked at the dog slobber on her hand, at the paint and grease smearing his hand, and decided they were equally begrimed and this somehow made the handshake fair and proper.

“Come on in,” Greg said, though he paused and glanced behind her.

McCall looked over her shoulder, wondering if Dash had caught up with her, but he had been letting Rose treat his blazer burn when McCall left. She’d forbidden him to follow her until he was thoroughly patched up, though she hadn’t been positive he would listen. She thought of the gouges he’d received from that robotic creature—they likely still hurt him—and hoped the Alliance let him relax and recuperate before sending him out into some battle.

If he stayed with her on her ship, he could recuperate all he wanted, but he had to take his comrades off to their secret base. Besides, she didn’t want to encourage him to give up his mission in life. If he decided he truly wanted to, she would gladly invite him into her universe, but she would be as neutral as she could and try not to sway him one way or the other.

“Just making sure that grumpy cyborg isn’t following you,” Greg said. “He isn’t, is he?”

“No, he’s on another continent.”

“I wish you’d said another planet.”

“Sorry. But I don’t think he’s going to come after you, if that helps. We had a chat with him.”

Technically, only Dash had done the chatting. While dodging furniture.

“That must have been unpleasant,” Greg said.

“Yes, my androids were mangled along with my—” McCall almost said boyfriend but hesitated. It had been so long since she’d had a boyfriend that the word didn’t flow off her tongue, and she and Dash hadn’t quite figured things out yet, so she didn’t know if she had the right to claim him as such. “My friend.”

“Sounds like what I would expect. He roughed me up when he brought the ship in the other day because I dared ask to see provenance on it.”

Greg led the way past a couple of offices and into the hangar bay in the back. It was sufficiently sized and equipped for anything from motorcycles and hoverboards to small ships. McCall spotted her baby in the middle and almost cried on the spot.

“He said I was going to paint it, not sell it, and to mind my own business,” Greg added. “Like law enforcers come in every day with civilian ships and want them worked on. He didn’t even have the access code to the hatch, so he had to leave it open. Naturally, I looked inside. Is that your android out of commission on the deck too?”

McCall had been about to rush to the open cargo hatch, but she lurched to a stop. “Scipio? What do you mean out of commission?”

“There’s a CPU-lock on the back of his neck. I wasn’t sure what he was programmed to do, so I left him as is.”

“He’s programmed to get your coffee and answer the comm,” McCall growled and ran up the ramp.

“In that case, I should have removed the lock right away!” Greg called after her.

McCall didn’t respond. She ran through the cargo bay with Junkyard bounding after her, barking as if this were play time.

“Later, buddy,” she said. “We’ll spend a night on the coast of that jungle continent, and I’ll let you tear up and down the beach.” She owed him more than a night after all this.

“Scipio,” McCall blurted, almost tripping over him as she ran into NavCom. That big oaf Axton had left him in the middle of the deck.

Fortunately, removing the CPU-lock was a simple enough matter since the code hadn’t been programmed in. She twisted it, punched the button, and pulled it off.

Scipio didn’t move.

Had he been damaged? He must have piloted the ship to Selva Moon, assuming Dash was right and Axton wasn’t a pilot himself.

“Scipio, there’s a sale on Tasharani suits right now. You don’t want to miss it.”

Scipio’s eyes opened, and he sat up in that mechanical not-quite-human way of his. Relief washed through McCall’s veins, and she hugged him.

Junkyard ambled into NavCom and sniffed Scipio’s leather shoes.

“Tasharani, you say?” Scipio asked, shifting his shoes away from the dog’s nose.

“I’m sure there’s a sale going on somewhere in the system. If you’re hale, we can fly around and look for it.”

“I am hale.” Scipio rose to his feet and looked around. “Is that odious cyborg here?”

“No, Dash and I left him in the jungle after interrogating him.”

Scipio tilted his head in Puzzled Expression Number Two. “You interrogated a cyborg?”

“Technically, Dash—he’s a Starseer, by the way—read his mind while Axton was throwing furniture at him.”

“Dash? Law-Enforcer Deputy Arjun Deshmukh?”

“Yes, we’re on a first-name basis now. Technically, a nickname basis. I’ll explain it all…” She grimaced at the idea of storytelling now. As much as she’d missed Junkyard and Scipio, she needed some alone time to decompress. “In a few days,” she finished.

“Very well.” Scipio knew her quirks and wouldn’t press her. Androids made excellent friends. “Do we have a new case? Are you in need of my piloting services at this time?”

“No new cases yet. I need to figure out what the ramifications of all my actions are going to be first. If any. And also figure out…” She thought of Dash, but it was too much to explain simply, so she only shook her head again. “We need to get off this moon, so I will need a pilot, yes. And I’ve purchased a number of new androids who are in need of repairs. Can you download a protocol to help with fixing your own kind?”

“New androids? Did you believe I would be destroyed by the cyborg?”

“I was concerned about that for a while, but that’s not why I got these fellows.”

“I am prepared to pilot and assist as needed with android repairs. I am intimately familiar with the mechanical schematics of many models.”

“Excellent.”

The comm panel beeped.

McCall eyed it warily, hoping she didn’t already have law enforcers looking for her to ask a plethora of questions.

“Yes?” she answered, half-tempted to let Scipio handle the interfacing.

“It’s me.”

“Oh,” she said in relief. “Have your injuries been healed?”

“Not fully, but I can almost lift my arm.”

She cringed in sympathy and wanted him to come to the ship so she could make him feel better. Somehow. If only by talking to him while he got drunk on some of her wine.

“Hopefully, I can recover fully en route,” Dash went on. “The law enforcers are sniffing in our area again. I think they’ve got a bead on the ship. I knew I shouldn’t have flown so close to the city.”

McCall grimaced. He had only flown as close as he had so he could drop her off near the paint shop.

“Are you in trouble now?” she asked.

A thud followed by a screech came over the comm.

“Slightly. I’m going to take our new friends home.” Judging by how vague he was, Dash believed someone might be monitoring their communications. But she got the gist. He was leaving. Without her.

“I understand.” She stared glumly at the comm panel, wanting to say much, much more. But if someone truly was listening in, she dared not give away anything that would help them find Dash or link him to her in the future.

“I, uh, hope I see you again soon.”

“I hope you do too.”

He snorted. “Is that position you know of still available? In case… just in case.”

It took her a moment to realize he meant the piloting job he’d asked about. She almost said yes promptly, especially since he was leaving and they hadn’t had a chance to share a real goodbye, but she caught herself, remembering her vow not to encourage him. Just to be there if he made this choice. It was possible the Alliance would reject him now that they knew about his Starseer abilities, but it wouldn’t be right of her to hope for that.

“The employer would be happy to hire you if you find you can break away from your current engagement.” McCall hoped that made sense to him.

“I understand. Thank you. I… will miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too,” she said quietly and tried to swallow down the feeling of bleakness that came over her. She would miss him a lot.

Rattling sounded over the comm, and she imagined Dash trying to clear orbit with ships chasing after him.

“Goodbye for now, McCall.”

“Goodbye for now, Dash.”

Not, she assured herself, goodbye forever.

Epilogue

Dash and the Alliance mechanic shared curses as they worked on the Striker-9 fighter in the big bay of the asteroid base. The ship was one of a dozen that had been salvaged from an imperial spaceship and airplane graveyard on Arkadius. This was one of the most promising of the craft—it had only been decommissioned thirty years ago—but Dash couldn’t help thinking he would be nuts to fly it into space. But he might have to. The Alliance was gearing up to make a push, to start an actual war with the empire, and it looked like he would be a part of it.

It had been more than four weeks since he’d arrived at the base with Rose, Walters, and the rest of the group from the prison. He’d been swept up and put to work immediately, but he kept waiting for Admiral Walters, Rose, or another higher-ranking officer to drag him to the side and question him about his Starseer talents. At the least, he had expected another confrontation with the younger Walters. But nothing had happened. He hadn’t even seen Walters since the day they’d arrived.

A part of him was relieved, though he kept waiting for the hammer to fall, and a part of him was disappointed. On the five-day flight from Selva Moon to the asteroid base, he’d decided that, if the Alliance rejected him, he would return to be with McCall. He could find a way to aid the Alliance from afar, from a seat beside hers on the Star Surfer.

But nobody had rejected him. So here he was, preparing to fly into battle any day now.

Dash missed McCall and had been on the verge of falling in love with her, but he couldn’t abandon the Alliance if they didn’t kick him out, not with war on the horizon. They needed him. And she… would probably be fine without him. He knew she cared for him, too, but she had her life back, an independent life where she relied on no one. She’d made it clear she would take him aboard her ship, but she’d never implied she would wither away and die without him.

“Captain Dash?” a woman asked from behind him.

He lowered his tools and turned, recognizing that voice. It was Rose. Advisor Rose Akerele, now one of the co-commanders of the base. Feelings of uncertainty assailed his gut. Had she finally come to tell him the Alliance didn’t want him?

“Ma’am?”

“A ship is asking for permission to land.”

Dash looked at her in confusion and was on the verge of touching her mind when she smiled and changed her words to, “A ship is asking for your permission to land.”

“McCall?” he whispered, seeing the familiar purple Comet Cruiser in Rose’s thoughts—and also seeing that it had taken up a position not far from the forcefield-protected entrance to the bay.

“McCall. She flew past thousands of asteroids in the belt and straight to our location.” Rose waved toward the other asteroids visible beyond the translucent forcefield and raised her eyebrows. “Did you give her our location?”

“No. But finding things is her specialty.”

Rose snorted. “Indeed. I need to take another stab at recruiting her. I’m sure her skills would be helpful. Any chance that’s why she’s here? To join us? Or did you invite her for a quickie?”

“Ma’am.”

Dash couldn’t help but sound scandalized, more at the idea of a gray-haired female commander speaking about quickies than of having one, but he knew that wasn’t what had brought McCall here. They’d never gone beyond kissing in their too-brief time together, and he hadn’t wanted to push her for more, not like the men from her past that he’d caught her thinking about from time to time. But was it possible that she’d come here, if not for a quickie, then for him?

“Is it all right to invite her in?” Dash asked.

“Of course. We owe her a debt of gratitude. Though my co-commander Admiral Carey wants to ensnare her so we can add that ship to our fleet.”

“He would have to go through her dog and her android first. They’re rather loyal, I understand.”

“I look forward to meeting them,” Rose said, then turned to walk away.

“Wait, Commander?”

She turned back.

Dash hesitated. Should he ask about his concerns? Or let sleeping dogs lie? He would continue to worry about his Starseer abilities being brought up if he didn’t find out how his superiors felt. Surely, Walters had spoken. Surely, they knew.

“I haven’t seen Walters since we got back,” he said.

“He was sent to another base for pilot training.”

“Ah.” Dash lowered his voice so the mechanic wouldn’t hear. “Did he…”

“Dash,” Rose said, also lowering her voice, “we had a meeting, and as it turns out, you are the third Starseer that has joined the Alliance.”

“You mean it’s allowed?” He stared at her. Had all his worries been for naught?

“I suggest you keep it to yourself, since there are a lot of people on both sides who feel the way young Walters does, but Admiral Walters said he’d rather fly with you than against you. We on the command staff have decided to consider it useful to have Starseers on our side, and you may be called upon to do more things than fly.”

“Huh.”

Her gray eyebrows twitched. “But oration won’t be one of them.”

“Ma’am, are you mocking me?”

“Possibly. You had better see if McCall and her friends will welcome you aboard.” Rose flicked her fingers in an approximation of a salute, then walked away.

McCall’s friends. How would a reunion with them go? Dash had been an enemy the last time he had been aboard her ship, with Junkyard eager to munch on Axton’s balls and Scipio powered down in a closet.

It was strange, but he wondered what the dog and android would think of him now. Would Junkyard be willing to make friends with him without a cyborg looming nearby? Maybe he ought to run and find a meat-flavored ration bar. And what did one give an android to earn his trust? Dash remembered Scipio’s collections, but he didn’t have any ceramic eggs or hats close at hand, and the secret Alliance base lacked a gift shop.

The sleek purple craft appeared outside the forcefield, its running lights making the dark paint gleam. The ship would be out of place among the derelicts in the bay, but it wasn’t like it was about to become part of the fleet. Dash couldn’t imagine McCall agreeing to send it into battle. It was her home.

Rose must have told someone to give the Star Surfer permission to land, for it glided through the forcefield, the energy barrier capable of holding in the atmosphere while allowing ships transmitting the correct passcode through it.

“I’ll be back in a few, Rodge,” Dash told the mechanic helping him and tossed his tools in the nearby bin.

“After your quickie?” Rodge, who was even more gray-haired than Rose, asked.

“After something,” Dash muttered, his cheeks warming. A former bounty hunter with fearsome scars and a deadly hook kick shouldn’t allow talk of sex to embarrass him, and yet his cheeks only grew hotter as someone whistled after him. Had everybody heard that part of the conversation?

Dash hustled to the open spot the Surfer was angling toward and waited impatiently as it landed. Flawlessly. Its landing struts did not make a sound as the ship settled on the metal deck. McCall did not, Dash noted, need him when she had an android pilot.

As soon as the cargo hatch opened and the ramp lowered, he started up it.

“You’re assuming you’re invited into my ship?” McCall asked, stepping into view.

She wore the exact same thing she had the first time they met, the many-pocketed baggy trousers, loose shirt, and jacket, with a stun gun hanging from a belt. He grinned because it was exactly how he’d imagined her these past weeks.

“Well, I did invite you into my asteroid.”

“This is true. It’s higher tech than I anticipated.” McCall waved toward the forcefield, though the gesture faltered when she noticed the near-derelict ships. “Parts of it.”

“We use everything we can. Uhm, do you want to talk inside?” There was a reason Dash had intended to head into her cargo hold. He glanced toward all the pilots and mechanics hard at work throughout the bay. Despite that hard work, they all seemed to have an eye toward this ship and this conversation.

“Sure.” McCall looked at his face—his jaw, to be precise. “This is the first time I’ve seen you with your face shaved.”

Dash touched his chin. There had been an inspection that morning, so he’d done his best to look sharp. “Do you like it?”

“Immensely. When we kissed before, it was like lip-wrestling with a hedgehog.”

“I didn’t realize that would bother you. I thought my tongue just had to be more appealing than tripe.”

“I’m a demanding woman.” McCall stepped aside and smiled as he entered the cargo bay.

Dash reached for the hatch controls, thinking to shut it so they could have privacy, but hesitated with his hand in the air.

“Is there a problem?” she asked.

“If I close it, it may fuel speculation.”

Her brow wrinkled.

“Co-commander Akerele thought you may have come for a quickie.”

The wrinkle to her brow did not smooth. “A quickie? Like sex?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess if you rubbed my scalp the whole time, I would consider it.”

That wasn’t the answer Dash had expected, and he almost fell over. He cleared his throat and rested his hand on the hull, struggling to reclaim a degree of suaveness. “The whole time? You don’t think there might be other uses for my hands that you would enjoy?”

“I don’t know. Would you need both hands for those other uses?” She glanced toward people outside looking in and closed the hatch.

“Er.” He tried to picture the logistics in his mind. “Possibly… not. I’m relatively agile for someone approaching forty.”

She snorted. “Such an old man.”

He realized he didn’t know her age, though he’d guessed her around forty based on how many years she’d been in the business. He tended to think of her as younger than he was, both because she looked it with her simple clothing, lack of makeup, and hair always back in a ponytail, and because she seemed less experienced at a lot of things. But then, she’d certainly had time to read far more books than he had.

“What did bring you here?” Dash asked, hope stirring in his chest.

She took a long slow breath before answering, and he almost expected her to say she didn’t know, that she had been ambling past the Kir Asteroid Belt and randomly decided to stop by. He hadn’t yet poked into her thoughts and resisted the urge to do so now, wanting to hear the answer from her lips.

“I heard the Alliance was recruiting.”

He swallowed. Hard. “It is.”

“Good. It was a long flight out here. It would be a shame to be turned away because they had fulfilled their recruitment quotas for the month.”

Dash couldn’t find words, so he stepped forward and hugged her. Maybe he should have asked before wrapping his arms around her, but his tongue wasn’t working right. Maybe the lump in his throat had something to do with it.

McCall smiled and hugged him back. The sense of contentment that emanated from her warmed his heart.

“You changed your mind?” he whispered after a time, his face pressed to her hair. It smelled a lot better than it had on that law-enforcement ship with the limited wash facilities, and thoughts of quickies—or maybe longies—stampeded into his mind. “Because of me?”

“Actually, it was a lot of things but especially something Rose said.”

Dash lowered his arms. “It… wasn’t because of me?”

“Well, you were one of the things. I’ve missed you. I think I may be falling in love with you.” She tilted her head, as if that was a puzzling notion.

“I’ve had similar feelings,” he whispered, tears pricking at his eyes. “You’re the only person…” He was going to say who fully accepted his secret talents, but he simply reiterated, “You’re the only person.”

“I’m glad.”

They hugged again, and he whispered, “What was the thing Rose said to you? And for the record, you’ll have to call her Advisor Akerele now.”

“A chain of command, eh? That’ll take some getting used to.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “As to what she said, she reminded me that if I didn’t help the Alliance now, voluntarily, there might not be anyone to help me should I ever need it. I’ve been thinking about how easily everything was taken away from me, how I could have ended up in that prison forever—or until the gruel killed me from the inside out. I like to think I’m independent and nobody can tell me what to do, but right now, we live in a universe where freedom is an illusion, something the government can take away with a snap of their fingers.” Her voice grew soft as she added, “I’m scared to join the fight, but I’m also scared not to.”

“I understand.” Dash pressed his lips against the side of her head and pulled her tightly to him, afraid she would disappear if he didn’t hold on. “I can’t promise you it’ll all work out, but I can promise I’ll always have your back.”

“I know you will. Thank you.”

They stood quietly, arms wrapped around each other, for several minutes before a clunk came from elsewhere in the ship, and McCall lifted her head.

“I hope nobody will mind that I brought my entourage with me.” Her lips quirked into a smile.

“Junkyard and Scipio?”

“Among others.” McCall turned toward the corridor at the other end of the cargo hold. “Everyone, we’re home.”

Scipio walked out wearing an impeccable dark-green suit with a yellow shirt and silver cuff links. A green hat went with the suit, and he walked with an ebony cane with a silver handle and tip that matched the cuff links. He appeared regal, stately, and none the worse for the wear after his adventures. His regal walk was somewhat disturbed when Junkyard bounded past, bumping his hip and cane as he charged toward McCall. Scipio issued an exasperated noise that sounded amazingly human.

As Junkyard rushed up to McCall and stuck his nose out to sniff Dash, several more androids walked into the cargo hold. A dozen to be precise. They weren’t tattooed, but they all wore different colored trousers and jackets. Some of them still had gouges in their fake skin from their run-in with the cyborgs, but they had all their limbs attached and appeared to be fully functional.

“You kept them?” Dash gaped, too stunned to react at first when Junkyard shoved a nose into his hand.

“I kept them,” McCall agreed. “I named them, you see, and once you name something, it’s hard to return it.”

“But it was so much money. What are you going to— You’re not really going to start a mercenary army, are you?”

“No, I’m joining the Alliance army. Didn’t we already discuss that? Look, I don’t have quickies with slow men.”

“I—what?”

Had she just suggested she would be open to more than kissing? Wait, only if he wasn’t slow. He straightened and attempted to look intelligent. And swift. Very swift.

“Also, Junkyard wants you to pet him.”

“Oh.” Noticing the cool nose prodding his hand, Dash patted the dog. His head was easy to reach. Dash had forgotten how large Junkyard was, probably because he’d spent the whole time in McCall’s cabin before. “He’s not trying to eat me. That’s encouraging. Especially since I didn’t know where to get steaks on short notice.”

“No, he generally doesn’t eat people. Only cyborgs rub him the wrong way. I’d be curious to find out why someday.” Her brows lifted. “Can you communicate telepathically with dogs?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never tried. There are some Starseers who specialize in animal husbandry, but my mother didn’t allow us to have pets when I was growing up, so I never got to find out if I had a knack with them. Uhm, your dog’s teeth are around my wrist. Should I be concerned?”

“It means he likes you. He almost never breaks the skin.”

“Almost never? Encouraging.”

“You can distract him by giving him food,” McCall said.

“Something tastier than my wrist?”

“Precisely.” She poked the dog in the ribs. “Give it a rest, Junk.”

Junkyard released Dash’s wrist, and he resisted the urge to check it for permanent indentions. Tough manly men who had survived being brutalized by robot predators and cyborgs in the same month weren’t supposed to complain about playful dogs.

Junkyard ran to the hatch, sniffed around the seam, then ran back and rolled onto his back with all four legs in the air. McCall crouched and rubbed his belly.

“He wants to go out and play,” she said. “Do you think your people would be amenable to a canine helper?”

“Are you sure you can’t communicate telepathically with dogs?”

“They’re simpler to understand than humans.” McCall stood up, and Junkyard ran to the hatch again, looking back and wagging his tail hopefully.

Even Dash could read those signs. “Why don’t we go see Advisor Akerele? Do I understand correctly that you’re offering the services of your androids as well as yourself?”

“Yes.”

Dash lowered his voice. “Can you afford to lose them?”

“For good or ill, I paid upfront. They’re fully mine.”

“You did even better at your business than I realized. Are you sure…” Dash swallowed, hesitant to ask a question that could possibly result in her regaining her sanity and leaving. “Are you sure you want to join the Alliance and leave all that behind? I suppose you could technically still work for your clients, but you’d have to screen people carefully and arrange to be paid in physical currency. The empire will freeze your bank account as soon as they realize you’ve turned your back on them.” Dash had experienced that himself. In his case, the amount of currency in his account wouldn’t have purchased a box of fancy donuts, so it hadn’t been a great loss, but with McCall…

“I know. I’ve made up my mind. I have come here prepared to do without any of my usual comforts.”

Maybe not entirely, since he could see crates of Tammy Jammy bars secured along a bulkhead.

Dash smiled. “No comforts whatsoever? I’m positive I offered you the warm bastion of my arms at some point.”

“Bastion?”

“Yes,” he said, “it’s a defensive structure on a fortress or stronghold. Were parts of castles not covered in any of your books?”

She poked him in the chest. “I know what the word means; I was questioning whether your arms qualify.”

“They most certainly do. Do you want me to take my shirt off so you can observe their rock-like hardness?”

“Not… in front of the androids.”

“Later?” Dash wriggled his eyebrows.

“Maybe.”

Junkyard flopped down in front of the still-closed hatch and sighed dramatically.

“Are we boring him?” Dash asked.

“He’s not impressed by your flirting.”

“I had no idea your dog was so critical.”

“We should probably go speak with your commanders before the androids do the same thing.”

“That might be entertaining to see, but all right.” Dash headed for the hatch, hoping Junkyard didn’t expect to find grass or trees in the asteroid base.

McCall walked beside him, bumping her shoulder against his and smiling at him. She didn’t say anything, but he could sense that she truly had missed him and enjoyed being with him again. He returned the smile and slid an arm around her waist.

“That’s nice,” she said.

“Bastion-like.”

“Were you this delusional before?”

“Yes. You didn’t notice it because you were preoccupied with getting your ship back.” Dash stopped at the hatch and reached toward the controls to open it.

But she turned toward him, touching her hand to his chest and smiling up at him again.

“Can I kiss you before we deal with the rest of the base?” he murmured.

“I’ll be disappointed if you don’t.”

He pulled her fully into the bastion of his arms and made sure he didn’t disappoint her.

THE END

Afterword

Thank you for picking up Fractured Stars. I hope you had fun with the adventure.

I intended this to be a single stand-alone novel, but I am a little intrigued by what McCall and Dash might do next. If you enjoyed the story and want to see a follow-up novel, you can help out by leaving a review for Fractured Stars or mentioning it to a friend who might like it. Sometimes, I just write what I’m inspired to write, but how well a book does and reactions from my readers mean a lot too.

If you would like to sign up for my newsletter, you can snag some bonus short stories. I’ve got “Bearadise Lodge,” a McCall-and-Junkyard vacation that doesn’t go quite according to plan, in there now, along with a whole bunch of extra goodies from my Fallen Empire series. (If you haven’t read that, you can download Star Nomad for free from any store.) I’m also working on a short novella that tells the story of how McCall first found Junkyard. I’ll be posting that on my blog (at http://www.lindsayburoker.com), but I’ll also send an ebook version out to subscribers this fall.

Here’s that newsletter signup: http://lindsayburoker.com/book-news/fallenempire/