When Garnet made to step after him, needing to make sure that he was okay – since he only got hurt because of her – Tanin brought her up short. He stopped her by tugging on her wrist, bringing her back into his grasp as he continued looking her over.
Garnet frowned at him. “That guy, Tanin. He was there.Thatguy, he was…”
“I know.” He looked up from his inspection of her body. “Right after you two stepped through the first doors, Alred came back through. He’d gone into their system to check it out and he saw the other ship attached in the back. He came in while they claimed they were decontaminating in preparing for our arrival. It was too late to stop him, and we couldn’t do anything to the station without risking you two. Alred very nearly revealed himself, but I convinced him not to. I knew Rok could take care of you.”
“How did he find us? How did he know?”
Tanin shook his head. A human move he’d picked up from her. “I don’t know. But that laboratory had to have known him and allowed him entrance. It would be almost impossible to forcibly board that station with its precautions in place. And where he entered was an emergency exit. Usually, those can’t be accessed at all.”
“He was dressed like one of them. They let him stay there. He even waited until we passed on the package before doing anything.”
“I imagine Gissrn offered them a great deal to go along with it.”
“Or maybe Gissrn owns this lab and hired us to bring the chest here and just had that guy waiting for us!”
“Possible, but unlikely. This station isn’t owned by Gissrn. As it happens, I know the female who does own it. She’s ruthless and demented, and I’ve no doubt she’d experiment on a human if she had the chance. But she won’t risk her funding by being blatantly illegal like that. No, however he knew we were here, I don’t think it was that type of set up.”
“Then, how…”
“I don’t know.” He put his finger on her chin, tilting her up to look him in the eyes. “But I will find out.”
***
“No more deliveries. Not until we figure out how we’re being tracked.”
Tanin’s announcement to the packed rec room made Garnet wince with guilt. Even if, logically, she knew it wasn’t her fault, that she and Goldie were being hunted not because of anything they did, it still felt like it. Running the Humility wasn’t cheap. The guys needed their steady stream of deliveries to survive, and because of them, they were losing out on good credz.
Despite that, not one of the guys looked upset by the announcement. Well, Vytln looked disgruntled, but it was his baseline level of displeasure, nothing new or intensified. He was posted up in the corner, arms crossed, giving Tanin an expectant look.
They all were. All the guys had gathered. Even Alred, in his light form, was standing beside Tanin with his wrists clasped behind his back. His featureless face somehow managed to look serious and stern, his shoulders held stiff and strong.
They’d disconnected from the lab station and were free floating their way out of the solar system. They were going to keep moving until the generators recharged, upon which they’d be swinging their way directly to their final destination. It would still take a couple more jumps to reach Hir-Fallow, but they weren’t stopping for jobs along the way anymore.
That shinuk guy finding them once was already a coincidence. Twice meant that he had some way of tracking them. Either by directly tracking them or directing them where to go by hiring them for jobs to get them to specific places. Regardless of how he was doing it, Tanin was calling a halt to their delivery jobs until they figured it out.
“The twins and Alred did manage to get us some information based on what he found in the lab station and through twin’s connections,” Tanin said, waving to his combot, causing the little device to project an image in the air.
Garnet knew very well that it was just a holo display of the guy, but she still found herself jumping, wincing back in her seat, when that shinuk male was suddenly standing in front of them. He was wearing a very plain jumpsuit, expression unreadable, looking out at nothing.
It wasn’t the first time she had seen him, but it was the first time she had the space to actually note any of his features. She wouldn’t call him handsome or ugly. If anything, his simple features seemed wrong for the danger of the guy they were attached to. He should either be handsome and icy cold, or he should be grotesque and ugly. But even with the five eyes, he was just… a guy. His nose wasn’t big or small, his lips weren’t big or small. He just… was.
But he was muscular. His skin shined in a way that didn’t seem very fleshy, but she wouldn’t call it shiny like a carapace. He had a tail, long and fleshy, that she hadn’t noticed before, short but pointed ears, and three fingers alongside his thumb instead of four.
“This is Neelai Pod Qarall. Though he does not officially work for King Gissrn in any capacity, Alred was able to connect them through Neelai visiting the king’s palace from time to time. He was a known and registered legal bounty hunter at one point, but his license has long since been revoked. Neelai has been charged with multiple crimes, including assault, kidnapping, and murder. But whenever it comes time for him to go to trial, the charges are dismissed, placed on someone else, or the punishment for them amounts to little more than a fine.”
A hired thug for a king. Garnet frowned at his expressionless face, hating how uncomfortable it made her to stare at him. Maybe it was just because this was only a holo recreation of the guy, but it seemed like there really wasnothingthere. Like he didn’t have a single emotion behind those eyes. He wasn’t ruthless or malicious. He simply didn’tcareabout the things he did.
And that’s exactly how he looked at her when he had her in hand. When he’d been pulling her hair, trying to shove that cannister in her face. He wasn’t angry or determined or even guilty – though that would have been a stretch even if he wasn’t a king’s hired thug. Instead, he was detached and unaffected. And that was somehow worse.
“Since he does work for Gissrn, even if there is no official record of it, he is well equipped and well paid. He is also thorough. He always plans an escape, and he always gets the job done. Gissrn has sent him after our crew, and he won’t stop until he gets us.”
A rush of warmth, so hot and heady it nearly brought tears to her eyes, crashed through Garnet with such sudden strength, she choked on her next breath.
Tanin didn’t say he was coming after their females. He didn’t single out Garnet and Goldie by name – though everyone knew it was them he was really after. He said ‘us’, because they were part of the crew, therefore, Neelai was coming after all of them.
And not one of the guys in the room contradicted him. None of them argued that it was really Garnet and Goldie he was after. None of them even looked back their way, like they needed to visually distinguish the difference between them.
Because there wasn’t one. Garnet and Goldie were part of the crew. And because the crew was a single unit, anyone after one of them was after all of them.