“I found something, Captain.” Karnek pointed at his screen.
Varik rose from Jarn’s chair.
“A Darknet posting for a three eff.”
“A what?”
“A fuel, fix, and fuck station.”
Varik peered at the posting on Karnek’s screen. He quickly calculated the fuel they had and the distance to the anti-authority space station. “Perfect. Send the coordinates to the nav station.”
He plugged in the data to the navigation and authorized the route twice. The computer didn’t recognize the location in space as a valid destination. But Varik was no longer playing by the rules. Technically, he never had. He had no illusion that the crew would keep their stop on the dirty station a secret. With this move, he would never be able to pass as legitimate again, and he didn’t fucking care.
Chapter40
Cyra slammedopen the door to the office. Something had exploded. In her mind,The Treasurewas in pieces, permanently destroyed. Men in parkas erupted from other doors. A vehicle with a red strobe and alarm raced across the landing pad, its spiked tires churning up the ice and snow. Her contact, Derrain, caught up to her, grabbing her shoulder.
“What?” She wrenched out of his grasp.
“Return to your ship. Run a safety scan. Now.”
She turned from where the vehicle was headed to findThe Treasurestanding solid, exactly where she’d left it. A ship streaked overhead.
“Unauthorized departure.” A mechanical voice echoed the announcement three times. More uniformed men appeared on the launchpad in vehicles and on foot. A dozen of them surrounded her ship, their weapons held upright, close to their chests.
She stopped, facing the one who had taken position at the base of her reopening ramp. “Cyra Maejzur, Captain ofThe Treasure. I was told to return to my ship.”
The ramp touched ground, the guard turned sideways. Cyra marched up the ramp. Her crew stood shoulder to shoulder, the five dogs at their feet, concern wafting from them like smoke.
“Security scan is running. Nothing so far,” Rhysa said.
Veda clasped Cyra’s forearm. “Where’s Dez?”
“Clear,” Blaize said as she pressed the button to close the ramp.
“Wait.” Cyra spun to the quickly closing ramp. Bodi’s arms wrapped around her before Cyra could throw herself back into the chaos. “I have to get Dez. He was in the offices. I left him there to talk to the contracting agent. He should be here.” Cyra begged Veda with a look. “Please tell me he made it back here.”
Veda shook her head. Bodi tugged Cyra out of the bay and back to the galley.
“I’ll make tea,” Veda said, pulling items from the cabinet.
Cyra sagged into one of the chairs. Dez was okay. He had to be. He’d probably gone with the mining personnel to help with whatever had happened. Of course he did. That was so Dez. In a few minutes he’d be knocking at the door.
Bodi’s wings flittered rapidly. “Maybe he sent a message.” She rushed back into the corridor, presumably headed for her station on the deck.
It was too soon for Dez to call. He’d be busy helping for a while. Cyra sipped her tea and told herself she was overreacting.
“I’m going to check the scan.” Rhysa left.
Blaize sat beside Cyra. Veda set cups on the table and took the seat on the opposite side of Cyra. The hot liquid settled Cyra enough to recall what she’d seen before the explosion. “I saw Varik. At least I’m pretty sure I did.”
“What?” Blaize thumped her cup down, a bit of hot liquid splashed over the edge. “What is that fork tongued devil doing on Kolben? Did he follow us? Did he set the bomb? I wouldn’t put it past him. There’s no low he won’t go to?—”
Cyra interrupted. “If it was him, he got here before us. The only other ship was already on the tarmac before we landed.”
“Wormhole?” Blaize’s voice was low as if she was asking herself. “But how would he have known?” She left her seat. “I have to run another scan. That bastard has to have another tracker on this ship somewhere and I’m going to find it and kill it, since I can’t kill him.”
Veda swiped up the spill and cleaned Blaize’s cup. “The dogs were unsupervised. They came up the ramp alone.”
