Page 14 of Star Prince (Star #2)

Chapter Fourteen

Fists deep in his pockets to fight the effects of the cold night air, Ian walked alongside Muffin, half-listening to Push, Gredda, and Quin’s humorous reminiscences as they all tromped back through the woods.

After a drink in the nearest bar and a sweep through town looking for Randall, in which they came up empty-handed, they had unanimously called off the evening early. Randall was obviously holed up back at his ship.

It was just as well—Ian wanted more time to work on his proposal. He knew that his detractors expected him, as an Earth-dweller and frontiersman, to be incapable of holding his own in serious negotiations, but they were wrong. When he confronted the senator, he would have several coherent, well researched plans—or at least the bare bones of them. Forethought and discipline had always been his strength.

A shot rang out in the distance. Screeching birds exploded out of the trees nearby, but an intense exchange of pistol-fire drowned out cries.

Muffin threw his arm in front of Ian, the instinctive gesture of a man protecting his leader, at the same time Ian reached for his gun with adrenalized speed.

More plasma-fire ended in an explosive crack of splitting wood that echoed through the forest. Then a woman screamed.

Tee!

Ian broke into a run. “To the ship!” he called.

Branches clawed at his face. Breathless, he burst from the tree line, skidding to halt at their ship’s landing pad. Right on his heels, Quin stumbled to a stop and aimed his flashlight at the Sun Devil.

Chest heaving, Tee squinted back into the beam, her eyes wild. From one hand dangled a smoking pistol; clutched in her other was a flashlight. Blood glistened on her forehead.

“Push,” Ian shouted. “Check the perimeter for intruders. Gredda, get the medical kit.” His crew took off in opposite directions.

As Muffin guided Tee away from the ship and sat her on the ground, Quin said, “I’ll get the auxiliary generator online—the one that should have come on automatically.”

“Why didn’t it?” Ian demanded. He had left Tee alone with a faulty security system and told her to sleep? The deed was criminal, especially knowing that someone might be after him.

“Hell if I know, Captain. But I intend to find out.” Swearing at the ship’s computer the mechanic jogged to the entry ramp and, after a few false starts, manually started the generator. The exterior and interior lights came on bright.

Mollified, Ian walked to where Tee sat with her long legs sprawled out on the dirt. As he crouched in front of her, she gazed up at him with a slightly dazed expression. Something inside him gave way as an elemental need to hold her, to care for her, dwarfed anything he had felt before. But instead of pulling her into his arms, he cursed the circumstances that kept them apart. “Gredda will fix you up,” he said gently.

“I’m injured?” She lifted a shaking hand to her head.

Ian snatched her fingers. “Don’t.”

“Something must have ricocheted and hit me,” she said. “I didn’t feel it.” She looked herself over. “I’m not shot, am I?”

Smiling, he took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Not that I can tell. Thank God.”

“Good. Now I can kill him.” Her mouth contorted with rage. “Preferably with my bare hands so that I can feel him suffer.”

“Kill him? Kill who? Tee, what the hell happened? ”

“Someone tried to sabotage the ship.”

Stepping away from the thruster, Quin shoved his hands in his pockets. “Someone did sabotage the ship.”

Ian’s neck tingled. He took his comm out of his pocket. “See anything, Push?”

“No, sir. Not yet.”

Quin interjected, “I think I can have it fixed by mid-morning,” with grudging acknowledgment he added, “Tee chased whoever it was off before he did any real damage.”

Ian sighed. “Take what time you need to do the repairs right. When Randall leaves for Earth, I want us to be on his tail. I don’t want there to be any reason for us to be left behind, especially not sitting here nursing a busted ship.”

Gredda returned with the medical kit and Tee’s coat.

Tee winced as the big Valkarian tended to the wound on her scalp. “The power went off—the security locks too,” she said. “I saw what looked like a person near the thruster, so I went outside to scare him off.”

“You shouldn’t have gone out alone,” Ian told her.

His concern sprang from his frustration at not being there to protect her, but she took it as an insult. “I quite understood the risk. I considered the situation desperate enough to warrant it. It was a decision that probably saved your ship. ”

“And almost cost you your life,” he snapped. “You blindly charged into action. You should always think things through, make a plan.”

One brow arched. “In other words, I didn’t handle this the right way.”

“The safe way, Tee,” he amended.

“ Your way, you mean.”

They glared at each other. Prudence versus pluck, he thought.

Her tone softened—only a fraction, but enough to tell him she had finally recognized the worry in his tone. “I tried to reach you, Ian. The power went off before the call went through. My personal comm was in my quarters, and in the dark I didn’t think I had enough time to get it and save the ship. When he saw me come out, he started firing. I fired back. Then he ran into the woods. I nearly put that tree branch on his head.”

In unison, the crew’s eyes veered to a huge smoldering branch crushing a grove of wet fern-like plants.

Tee growled, “I wish I had.”

“Practice will make perfect,” Gredda said from beside her. The big woman was concentrating on her ministrations, covering Tee’s abrasion with healer-film. Then she ruffled Tee’s hair. The short green-brown locks on her forehead sprang straight up and stayed there. “There. You’ll live.”

Tee climbed to her feet. Ian tried to assist her, but she pushed away, clutching his jacket around her. Her pale eyes blazed with indignation. “I want some clarification about this job of mine, and I want it now. The same cargo that was in the hold the day I came aboard this ship is still there. We haven’t made a single act of trade in the entire time I’ve worked for you. You say we’re checking out your competitor, but we’ve been following an Earth senator. Come on, Ian. How stupid do you think I am?”

Quin coughed. Gredda fiddled with a loose stud on her vest, and Muffin whistled silently, drumming his fingers on his upper arms. “I’d better check the perimeter again,” Push said and made an abrupt about-face.

Ian couldn’t think of anything to say. With her aptitude for galactic politics, it had been inevitable that Tee would guess his identity before long.

The young woman drew herself up to her full height. “I’ve worked hard for you, Earth-dweller. I’ve risked my life for you. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Yet still you don’t trust me. What more do I have to do to prove my loyalty to you and this crew?”

“Nothing, Tee. You have a right to know everything.”

Her voice lost its edge. “You’re not a trader, are you?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not.”

She let out a quick, harsh breath.

“My name is Ian Hamilton. I’m the heir to the Trade Federation and crown prince of the Vash empire. I haven’t broadcasted that fact because I wanted to keep a low profile. I wouldn’t have been able to learn what I have otherwise.”

Shivering, Tee dabbed her nose with the back of her hand. For the first time since he met her, she looked truly afraid. “You have enemies, Ian,” she said finally.

“I get that feeling.”

“It’s time you found out who they are. I—I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

He shifted his weight. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

“You don’t know who you’re up against.” Something in her tone struck him.

“Do you ?” he asked.

Her breath formed clouds in the chill air as she squeezed her hands together, a gesture he had come to associate with her tension. The entire crew gathered around them, listening intently. “There was a man at the market the day you and Muffin took me shopping. He was staring at me from across the street, so openly that the merchant noticed and called my attention to it. He was wearing a cloak and hood so I couldn’t see his face, but as he turned away I was able to see his eyes.” The flicker of true fear—was it for him? —that crossed her face vanished so fast that he wasn’t sure he had seen it. “Ian, he was Vash Nadah .”

“A Vash? Here?” His blood surged. That truly was suspicious. His stepfather’s people infrequently left the interior of the galaxy.

Tee continued, “Because I didn’t know who you were, then, I didn’t say anything. It doesn’t excuse my negligence, but I was so focused on self-preservation that I didn’t stop to think he might be a danger to you and the crew.”

“After the near-miss with those Dars on Blunder, I can see why,” he acknowledged.

“Then, on Barésh, when we got separated, I was followed. It was the cloaked Vash again, and this time we talked. He let it slip that he was on Donavan’s Blunder.”

Ian thought of the loony bartender and his warning. Watch your back. “Who was he, Tee? Did he say?”

“Klark Vedla.” A muscle jumped in her cheek, and her face gleamed with perspiration despite the frosty air. “You know him, yes?”

“Yes.” He was more familiar with the prince’s older brother. Ché had been first in line for the throne until Ian entered the picture.

“Klark was here, Ian. Tonight. He damaged your ship.”

Her statement hit him like a two-by-four between the eyes. A surge of fury rolled through him. “To heck with the ship; he almost killed you!” He had hoped his dedication to the Vash, his participation in the Great Council, his work to become the perfect Vash prince, would have reassured anyone who disagreed with his selection as Rom’s heir. But now it was clear that any such optimism was premature. The Vash Nadah were pacifists on a galactic scale, but what about on a more personal level? It wasn’t like them to resort to violence, but what if they saw him as a threat to their cherished age-old bloodlines? How far were they willing to go to keep one of their own on the throne? And now that he suspected foul play, how should he handle it? The execution would be as critical as the resolution.

Ian returned his attention to Tee. “Tell me exactly what happened in the arcade. What did this Vash do? What did he say to you?”

“He made me sit with him and share a drink. I didn’t want to stay there, of course, so he got angry and began ranting. He blurted that he thought his older brother deserved more power than what the king was willing to give him.” She shifted from foot to foot uneasily, and Ian found himself thinking that either she was scared or she was holding something back. After a moment she added, “The entire episode was very odd. It seemed all he wanted me to do was have a drink.”

“How many did you have?”

“Only the barest taste of one,” she shot back defensively.

“One taste?” he repeated.

There was dead silence. Even the night creatures hushed as an almost eerie calm invaded him. “You could barely walk out of that bar. Didn’t you wonder about that?”

“I blamed it on my low tolerance to alcohol and the strength of what I drank...” Her eyes widened with understanding. “You think it’s more than that.”

“Vedla’s been poisoning our pilots. All along .” Ian let out a quick pained laugh and raised his hands. “And here I thought you were all alcoholics.”

Tee grimaced. “The pilot that came before me, he killed him?”

“Deliberately—or accidentally through overdose,” Muffin agreed. “If he wanted to slow us down and keep us from catching up with Randall, it worked. At first.”

The crew grumbled with more observations and suppositions.

Ian struggled to control his rage. “But I didn’t fire you for drunkenness like he hoped, so now he’s after the ship. We’ve had more than our share of maintenance problems, Quin. Do you see any connection to Klark?”

The mechanic shook his head. “The malfunctions are too random. Different systems break down each time, and they’re systems he couldn’t get to. I wish he was the answer, Captain, because I’m damned tired of trying to fix our rotten luck.”

“And I’m damned tired of being a fool.” With his hand on his holster, Ian walked toward a thicket of trees a dozen yards away. “Go on inside everyone. We’ve done all we can tonight. I recommend you get your sleep while you can. We’ll take care of Klark soon enough!” His proclamation worked; the crew left in higher spirits, mumbling about how the Vash saboteur was about to get his due.

“Hot damn!” Ian could hear his sister saying. “Ian Hamilton’s going to kick some ass.” Yeah, that was what Ilana would like—a good old-fashioned ass kicking—and Tee would too, by the sound of it earlier. But that was not how he operated. He had taken all those years of Tae Kwon do on Earth so that he wouldn’t ever have to fight—and it had worked. He had always been able to use his brains and his mouth to get out of every situation.

Vigilant for unusual sounds or movement in the woods, he tipped his head back and stared at the stars, but their stark beauty was lost on him tonight. If what the pixie said was true, Klark had been interfering with his mission from nearly the beginning.

Twigs crackled behind him. He didn’t have to see who it was; he felt Tee’s presence on a plane that went beyond the physical. This must be what the Vash meant when they spoke of being able to intuit another person’s presence, as was practiced though the sport of bajha. Whatever it was, he felt something. He felt her .

“It’s cold, Ian.”

He took his jacket from her, and she donned her own coat. “If he really wanted to assassinate me, I’d be dead already,” was all he said.

Her tone revealed her abhorrence of the subject. “Yes. I think so too. ”

He rolled his shoulders to ease the tightness in his neck. “If you take assassination out of the equation, every act he perpetrates appears calculated to keep me away from Randall. But why?”

“The answers lay inside you, ” Rom would say. “Listen to your senses Ian, Trust them. ”

Closing his eyes, Ian recalled, word by word, nuance by nuance, everything Rom had taught him about heeding his senses and taking his precognition to a higher level. The Vash Nadah valued the importance of intuition, over the centuries had raised its cultivation to an art form, but was he ready to do so himself?

His instincts had always been good. He had inherited that ability from his mother and in recent years learned to hone it, thanks to Rom’s patience and expert instruction. Guide me…

Tee’s voice broke his concentration. “The more I ponder this, the more I think Klark wanted us to come after him. Tonight. Why else would he have let himself be seen?”

Ian opened one eye. “Yes! That’s exactly it. A diversion—he wants to deflect my attention from Randall. He has to.” Euphoria made him forget his exhaustion. He let out a whoop, then laughed at Tee’s surprise. “Don’t you see? Klark is Randall’s associate!”

“Sweet heaven.” Tee breathed.

“He’s the one who told Randall about Barésh. He’s the one who showed him the fringe worlds.” It was the perfect conspiracy—a Vash royal facilitating interaction between troubled frontier worlds and Earth, encouraging a powerful Earth politician’s views of a self-ruling frontier, raising the specter of future galactic volatility the Great Council would insist only a full-blooded Vash king could handle.

“An unstable frontier would leave my stepfather no choice but to pick a Vash successor,” Ian speculated aloud.

Tee’s lips compressed. “Someone like Klark’s older brother. Ché Vedla.”

“And that’s exactly why I’m not going after Klark.” Remember your mission. “Klark’s the distraction. Randall’s the focus.” His gut told him so.

Ian flattened his hand on the small of Tee’s back and urged her toward the ship. “Randall’s getting ready to leave for Earth, and soon—I feel it. And Klark’s dangling himself as bait to keep me from going after him.” More supposition, he thought. Another guess. Did he dare risk letting Klark run amok while he concentrated on wooing Randall? What if his interpretation of Klark’s plan was faulty?

But time was running out. He had to trust his instincts, to believe in himself.

Ian’s eyes sought the stars once more. Each twinkle was a world he would someday rule. But wasn’t that presumption too, based only on a hunch—Rom’s premonition that his ascension to the throne would restore freshness to a stagnating society and unity to a galaxy on the brink of revolution?

A tremor ran through him. His destiny had its merits, he supposed, but it was clear that a serene and peaceful life wasn’t going to be one of them.

“At first light, I’m going to Randall’s ship,” he said.

“You said your proposal wasn’t ready.”

“We’re out of time, Tee; Randall’s leaving. I have to reassure him about Barésh…and about me, before he passes on his one-sided observations to Earth.” They stopped at the bottom of the entry ramp. “Besides, I have a few hours,” he added, then cracked a smile. “Who needs sleep anyway?”

“I’ll help you,” she offered.

Ian gazed down at his pilot. His fingers throbbed from the cold. Slipping his hands in his jacket pockets he said, “You have no obligation to do so, Tee.”

“I know I wasn’t part of your original crew, but I believe in you and what you’re doing. You care a great deal for Barésh and the worlds like it. You want to help them while also convincing Earth to stay in the Federation. I admire that…how you want to balance the needs of your home with the galaxy’s future.” Her golden eyes glinted strangely. In a tight voice she added, “You’ll make a fine king.”

The inevitability of their eventual separation sat heavy in his chest. And hers too, if he was reading her right. She, like him, realized that they could never be together. And she too must be trying hard to pretend the ache wasn’t there.

He brought his hand to her cheek. This sweet-faced quick-talking pixie was trouble incarnate for him—a smart, irrepressible woman with Vash eyes and a questionable past. She kept him wondering what it’d be like to make love to her though his mind belonged somewhere else— anywhere else— and the need to touch her was so close to overpowering his better judgment.

“Please,” she said. “Let me help. I have…a yen for politics.”

“I noticed.”

“Then let me be a part of it all. Let me help.”

The years spent submerged in Vash culture had urged him to trust his senses, and those senses told him to take the assistance she offered. He trusted her. “Okay,” he said, unable to shake the feeling that in joining forces with Tee, he had just spun his destiny into a sharp left turn.

Her face glowed. Smiling, he brushed his open hand over her hair, savoring the silkiness of the shorn ends against his palm. “Ah, pixie,” he said. “You wear your heart on your sleeve.”

She laced her fingers with his and brought his knuckles to her cheek. “What does that mean?”

“It’s what we say on Earth when someone’s feelings are easy to read. Yours are to me…even when you think you’re hiding them.” He paused. “You st ill have secrets, though. Big ones. In time I’ll know what they are.”

He hadn’t meant to sound threatening, but her mouth tightened in alarm. She dipped her head, obviously trying to hide her eyes now that he had told her how easily he could read her.

He tucked his thumb under her chin and tilted her face up to his. “As soon as you’re ready to tell me,” he reassured her, his voice soft.

She gave him the barest of nods. “Know this, Ian. When I was with you this morning”—her cheeks colored— “in the meadow, I still thought of you as Ian Stone.”

“A simple black-market trader,” he said, moving closer.

“To me, that’s who you’ll always be.”

“Ah, Pixie…”

Their breath mingled, and his thumb stroked her lower lip. Then he dipped his head and kissed her.

After a brief hesitation, she slipped her arms around his waist. He remembered her eager determination in the meadow, but this was different. She kissed him with a soft, almost loving tenderness he found moved him even more. He smoothed his palms over her hips and sweet backside, pressing her closer. Sighing, she melted against him, her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck, sending shivers down his spine.

It’s only kissing .

No. It’s more than that. You’d be crazy to deny it.

A sound from inside the ship reminded him where he was and what he was doing. Breaking off their kiss he hugged Tee to his chest, afraid to let her see his face before he got himself under control. She had claimed she preferred uncomplicated liaisons. Right. There was nothing uncomplicated about this woman.

“Get a little sleep,” he whispered into her ear. “I want you at least semi-conscious when you play the part of Randall while I practice what I’m going to tell him.”

She hunched her shoulders, reacting to his warm breath on her skin with a shudder. Sliding her hands from around his waist, she stepped out of his arms, her expression impish. “I will…because of all we have ahead tomorrow.” She backed away, but before she disappeared into the ship, she glanced over her shoulder. “There will come a night, though, Captain, when I won’t be so easily dismissed.”

The look she gave him promised things he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about. It was deep into the night before he finally pushed them from his mind.

“Gann! I’ve got your quarry in my crosshairs!”

Lara breezed into the Quillie’s cockpit, bending to give the kettacat a cautious pat on the head before she stopped in front of Gann.

He put aside the tablet he had been using to review data they had collected so far on the Dars’ runaway daughter. “I take it you had a fruitful afternoon in Padma City?”

Her eyes lit up with triumph. “Aye. I found her.”

“Here? On Padma?” The mission is complete; Lara Ros will be out of your hair and your life will go back to the way it was before. Odd, but the realization didn’t quite bring the cheer he had expected.

The tracker shrugged off her jacket and tossed it over the back of her pilot’s chair. “No, she ain’t here. She’s on Grüma.”

“Grüma’s known for its trade in illegal goods, is it not?”

“The black market, aye. Hmmm.” She smiled. “I wonder what our spoiled heiress is selling. On the other hand, perhaps someone is selling her. ”

Gann’s gut clenched at the thought. The princess was an innocent in so many ways. What if the darker elements in the frontier got to her before he could bring her to safety?

Lara rolled her eyes. “I’m joking,” she said.

He sat back in his chair, surprise jarring him. Although the thought of the princess in illicit flesh trade was horrible, even a jest in poor taste was a breakthrough for Lara Ros. He said, “Oh. This is a memorable day, then—in more ways than one.”

Incredibly, she gifted him with her first genuine smile. He hadn’t made any headway in coaxing a kiss out of her, but then his quest had been subtle. Too subtle, he thought with an inner grin. Now that he had gotten the first good smile out of her, perhaps it was time to make his intentions clear. A night of pleasure was definitely what they both needed. Had he ever gone so long without one?

“I questioned a few merchants just in from Grüma,” she explained. “They say there’s an Earth-dweller with a small crew there. He has two women in with him. One’s a Valkarian. The other is tall, thin, and a bit unusual-looking.”

“In what way?”

“Her hair is shorn off.”

Gann leaned forward, taking the bait. “Go on.”

“She wears an Earth-dweller cap most of the time to cover it. But one gentleman got a glimpse of what’s underneath. It’s green.”

“Green!” Gann exclaimed.

“Well, brownish green. But it looks really green in certain light, they say. One of the merchants remarked that it was a shame she had such awful hair, because she had the face of an angel. A purebred Vash Nadah angel.”

“That’s her. It has to be. You say the captain’s an Earth-dweller?”

“Aye.” Lara plopped into the chair next to his. “Which means they might at any time head back to Earth.”

“Or any number of planets in between,” Gann speculated, frowning.

The silver bracelets on Lara’s wrist tinkled as she called up Grüma’s coordinates on the nav computer. “I can get us there in precisely”—she studied the data— “two-point-four standard days.”

Satisfaction swelled inside him. Lacing his fingers over his stomach, he reclined in his chair. “I’m in your hands, Lara. Let’s go get her.”

Instead of taking her seat, the tracker tucked the kettacat under one arm and mounted the ladder leading down from the cockpit.

Gann raised a brow. “What in blazes are you doing?”

“Putting the cat out,” she said and ducked out of sight.

By the time he caught up to the woman, she was standing at the top of the exit ramp, nudging the kettacat with her boot.

“I said, go on. Git.” The creature butted its head against Lara’s calves repeatedly until she finally relented and patted its back. Gurgling softly, it brushed at her trousers with one velvety paw. Lara plunked her hands on her hips. “It won’t leave.”

Gann smiled. “Apparently not.”

“I’ll bring it to the freighter next door. Surely its crew can use a kettacat to reduce the vermin population in their cargo holds.” But when she reached for the cat, it rolled onto its back. Clearly at a loss, Lara sighed.

“She wants you to rub her belly,” Gann said. He crouched down and stroked his hand up and over the animal’s warm, silky stomach. The cat writhed, wanting more. “Ah, here too, eh?” he murmured, rubbing his thumb under its chin. The kettacat’s head tipped back and its purrs turned to snorts.

Gann said pointedly, “Notice that even this small creature knows that pleasure is heaven’s gift, a treasure to be shared and savored. See how she tells me just how to please her? I do like that.”

Lara made a small sound in her throat.

He glanced sideways. Her attention was glued to his hands. Her reaction pleased him; he enjoyed having discovered a way to circumvent her self-protective barrier.

He rolled the kettacat over and traced the bumps of its spine with his fingertips. Spreading the toes of its front paws, it arched into his hand, tilting its pelvis toward him.

He noticed Lara shut her eyes, color rising in her cheeks. “We have to leave,” she said. “Put it outside.”

All innocence, he asked, “Why? By now she considers herself part of the crew.”

Lara snatched the animal away and marched with it down the ramp. She lowered the kettacat to the ground. “Take advice from someone who’s been around the frontier awhile; you’re better off on your own.” She gave it a firm push, then she wiped her hands and walked up the ramp.

Mewing, it trotted after her. “What is wrong with it?” She snatched the kettacat up off the ground, holding it in midair, inches from her face. “You know nothing about me. Aye, today I fed you. Tomorrow I might sell your mangy hide to a pelt factory!”

The kettacat told her what it thought of her threat by rubbing its whiskered face against her smooth cheek.

“Bring her along,” he said. “How much trouble can one kettacat be?”

She glared at him. “This is your fault. The crattin’ thing’s become attached. I told you this would happen.”

“That’s what pets are supposed to do. Become attached.” He gentled his tone as he added, “People too.”

Fire flashed in her eyes. “Attachment means dependence.” She spat the last word as if it were a filthy epithet. “Dependence is dangerous.”

She apparently remembered she was holding the animal. Shoving it at Gann she growled, “Get rid of it. I’ve got a preflight checklist to run,” then stormed back to the cockpit.

Gann shook his head at the kettacat. “She sure can be endearing at times, can’t she?” Apparently in agreement, the little creature darted up the ramp after her.

Lara waited until after they had launched and were established in the space lanes before she turned in her chair to glower first at the kettacat, eating from a bowl on the floor, and then Gann. “You never listen to what I say. ”

“I listen, Lara. But perhaps what I hear is the essence, the feelings behind your words.”

She made a sound of disgust. “Here we go. You Vash and your thinky-feely, listen-to-your-senses crap.” The kettacat jumped onto her lap. She sighed. “Now you’ve gotten its hopes up. It’ll think it’s found a home.”

“Hope. Another concept that you find dangerous. Like dependence?”

Her jaw tightened. “Gann,” she said past clenched teeth. “This discussion is not covered—”

“In your contract,” he finished for her. “Yes, I know. Regardless, I’d like to continue—off the official record.”

He stepped closer until he stood directly before her. “I suppose that if you expect the worst from others, then no one can disappoint you. Insulate yourself from disappointment and you don’t get hurt. Right, Lara? Is that your credo?”

She made a strangled sound in her throat, then she brought her fists to her eyes. His heartbeat quickened; blood rushed through his veins. He sensed he was close to breaking through the mighty wall she had erected and he did not want to back down until he did. “I am curious,” he persisted. “Are your expectations of others as low? Or do you simply have none at all?”

With that, she slammed her fists onto her thighs. “Gann, you are a pain in the ass !”

Her directness delighted him. But the torment in her eyes emptied him of that amusement quicker than mog-melon wine from an upended uncorked flask.

“Lara,” he said quietly, surprised. “Your hands are shaking.”

She made a choking noise. “What’s your game, Vash ? Do you want to know more about me? Is that what this is all about?”

“Yes.” He placed his hands over her cold, bloodless fists, warming them. “You knock me off-balance continually. I like returning the favor.” His fingers fanned out over her fists. “That, and I know you’re not what you appear to be.”

Whatever she was trying to say to him appeared to be a struggle. Finally, she mumbled, “You’re not always what you appear to be, either.”

He smiled ruefully. “No, Lara. I’m not.”

She stared at their linked hands. On her face curiosity battled with constraint. Then, abruptly, she yanked her fingers out from under his. “I grew up on Barésh, a wretched, filthy slag heap of a place. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it.”

Gann searched his knowledge of the frontier. “It’s an asteroid in the frontier.”

“A dwarf planet, technically. But an ugly rock all the same.”

“The Baréshti mines are located there,” he said as some details returned to him.

“Aye. There’s two classes of folks who live there. Working class Baréshtis—trill rats—who labor in the mines. Back-breaking work. Then you got the upper-class elites, aristo cogs, who own the mines, living high and mighty and sheltered in their compounds. I don’t know what they do for fun, or even if they know how, but after hours, trill rats fill the bars and fight clubs. No one’s got much money, but they’ll gladly spend it betting on street bajha, buying ale to drink and hallucivapes to smoke.”

“Hallucivapes?”

“Aye. They’re vapes laced with sweef. Powdered swank. Swank’s a chemical cocktail that’ll melt your brain if you drink too much of it. A lot do drink too much of it. If all that doesn’t kill you, working in the mines will. Eventually.” She rolled her eyes. “Everyone wants to escape, but no one can afford to leave. It’s why Barésh has more virtual reality arcades than any other world I’ve seen. The arcades are packed, day and night. Some want the real thing—near-death experiences and the like.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “Nothing like a little self-inflicted or dished-out pain to remind you that you’re not already dead, ya know?”

Then her eyes hardened. “My father lost a leg in a mining accident. My mother took his place because the mine-boss cogs wouldn’t let him back into the caves and we had to eat. A few years later, she was killed. A gas explosion, we were told. But you never really know…”

For a heartbeat Lara’s voice lost its hard edge, then her tone iced over again. “My father said he’d find me a cabin position on an intersystem cargo freighter. The salary I’d send back home would make up for the loss of my mother’s. I was delirious with excitement, knowing I was going to escape off world. A Baréshti’s dream come true.”

She pushed herself to her feet and walked to the sweeping forward viewscreen. “As a lass, I’d always dreamed of flying, and he knew it. We Baréshtis worshipped the starpilots like gods. Any off-worlder was a god, I suppose, to us—we, who could never leave. But we understood that without money or influence to get me into flight school I’d have to start at the bottom and work my way up. I started at the bottom, all right. Aye. On a bed beneath a filthy swindler’s sweaty body.”

She halted, faced him, her mouth twisting bitterly. “My father sold me into sexual servitude. I was thirteen.”

It felt as if the floor dropped out from beneath him. He reached for her. “Lara… ”

Her hand shot out, stopping him. She swallowed, twice. “I spent my teenage years as a receptacle for a man’s depraved fantasies. At mealtimes, the pig chained me to the leg of the table. Naked .” She searched his face for a reaction. “With a collar around my neck.”

He stood there, too stunned to move.

“One night he choked to death on a piece of meat,” she said breezily, a tone at odds with the rigid way she held her body. “After he tumbled off his chair, I used his key to unlock my collar. Then I helped myself to his ship and made it mine.”

She attempted to maintain the lighthearted tone, but it sounded false. “I learned to fly from what I’d read, watched, and heard. It wasn’t pretty, and I think I was in love with the autoflyer. I didn’t attempt a landing for months. I was more afraid of wrecking the ship, and my ticket to freedom, than hurting myself.” Her gaze softened a fraction with the memory. “Finally, when supplies ran low, I learned to dock—fast.”

“I imagine you did. And then picked yourself up, dusted yourself off, and became the best blasted tracker I’ve seen in years.”

She shrugged, suddenly awkward. Gann sensed that she started out wanting to shock him, but finished her story craving the solace she hated admitting she needed.

He opened his arms. “I want to comfort you. That’s all.”

She wrapped her arms over her small breasts. The bracelets adorning her wrists glinted in the starlight streaming across the cockpit viewscreen. “I don’t think I can respond in kind. Should you need me to.” Helplessly she added, “Should anyone need me to.”

“Of course you can.” He hadn’t realized before what he was up against. Now that he did, his heart went out to her.

“No. I’m…too closed up inside.” She pressed her fingers to her lips.

His insides twisted. “Lara, you are so full of fire, so full of life. Let yourself feel, let yourself heal. Otherwise you’re condemning yourself to a lifetime of loneliness.”

The moment dragged out, tense yet tender. Then, miraculously, her arms lifted. He captured her fingers and drew her close. Strangely, his need to hold Lara went beyond wanting to console her; they had shared something, something he struggled to define. Sure of only one thing he bent his head to taste her lips, but she stopped him.

“He never kissed me,” she said.

Of course the monster hadn’t kissed her, Gann thought, feeling ill. “But, afterward, after you’d escaped, didn’t you…Haven’t you…?”

“Aye. Once. Years later. He was a trader I think. We went straight from the bar to bed, and I was so drunk he got right to business.” She shrugged. “After that, I thought, why bother?”

He had been raised to celebrate lovemaking and the relations between the sexes. Lara’s outlook and experience were at utter odds with what he knew to be true. He pondered that and the way she wore her mistrust of the Vash like a coat of armor. Great Mother. “He was Vash, wasn’t he?” he practically growled. “Your keeper…?”

“A Vash. Aye.” Her mouth dipped in a sneer. “Raised to follow the Treatise of Trade and to respect and revere women.”

“The man who abused you was an aberration, Lara. Sexual slavery is banned. It has been since the Great War.”

“Don’t be naive. It still exists. Granted, perhaps only here and there in the frontier, a place you Vash somehow manage to exploit without involving yourselves in our welfare.”

Gann spread his hands on top of the narrow briefing table next to her, his mind wracked with dark images of Lara abused by a Vash whom he prayed would suffer for all eternity to pay for his cruelty.

A place you Vash somehow manage to exploit without involving yourselves.

Her accusation rang with a truth he couldn’t deny. “But the lawlessness and lower standard of living in the frontier stems from neglect, not malevolence,” he defended. “Rom B’kah, our new king, once described the Vash federation as an old quilt—the center tight, the edges frayed. He wants badly to bring the frontier into the fold. He’s been working to do so…”

“How?” she demanded .

Ian. The answer came to Gann in a rush. Rom’s stepson was a frontiersman himself. In choosing the young, contested heir, Rom had proven brilliantly his commitment to the peoples of the outer reaches. Ian would be the first ruler with family ties to both the frontier and the Great Council. People on both sides would look to him for leadership. And once Ian was well established, no man would be better suited to lead the Federation into a new era where the quality of life in the farthest corners of the galaxy equaled that enjoyed in the central regions. Earth was the newest upcoming power in the area, and to right the wrongs in the frontier, the Federation needed that planet’s help.

“I’m deeply ashamed, Lara. You have suffered because of the Federation’s shortcomings. But with Rom’s son-by-marriage as the crown prince, I believe we can change what is wrong.”

She assumed her familiar, defiant stance. “The fact he’s not Vash Nadah makes me more inclined to believe it.”

Gann suppressed a smile. He supposed that was as close as he would get to an “I think you may be right.” He also had the feeling he had come as close as he was going to get for a kiss. But there were two-point-four days left to remedy that. He was more attracted to Lara than ever before.

He glanced over at a furry lump curled in her chair. “Look. Cat’s helped herself to our ship.”

Lara surprised him with a pleased, throaty laugh, clearly recognizing his reference to her earlier comment. “ Your ship, Vash. My ship’s impounded. Thanks to my idiot associate, Eston.”

She sauntered to her seat and buckled in. “That’s the only reason I’m traipsing around the frontier, looking for a spoiled aristo girl too half-witted to recognize how good she had it at home. Someone should tell her.”

Gann winced. Poor Tee’ah Dar. The soon-to-be-rescued princess had no idea what she was in for once she met Lara, master tracker, face to face.