“What makes you think I need transportation?” I asked.
“Because every component you just acquired from your supplier? Power source, data spoofer, comm relay? Those are escape kit pieces. You’re building something. But unless you’re planning to steal a shuttle from the spaceport, you don’t have a way off Valyria.” He pulled something from his jacket. A small device that looked like a standard civilian comm relay. He set it on the bar between us. “I have a ship. In orbit. This is a direct line to my pilot. Not monitored. Not recorded.”
I stared at the comm. “What do you want in exchange?”
“I need access to Tarsus’s private office. Specifically, a sculpture he keeps there. Obsidian. Thal’reth. Female figure, forty centimeters.”
My drink stopped halfway to my mouth. “That piece isn’t for sale.”
“I know.”
“It’s not even on display. He keeps it in his vault.”
“Not all the time.” Brevan watched my face. “It's brought to his office for special occasions. Shows it to his most exclusive ‘friends’.”
I picked up my drink again. “You want me to get you past his security.”
“I want you to look the other way while I retrieve something that belongs to me.”
He’d done his research. Someone had. Either way, he knew too much.
“Even if that’s possible,” I said, “why would I risk my contract for you?”
“Because your contract is the problem.” His tone shifted, less charm and more honesty. “You’re not planning to renegotiate it or wait it out. You’re planning to break it. Which means you need to disappear completely. New identity, new planet, somewhere Tarsus’s reach doesn’t extend.”
“And you can provide that.”
“I can provide transport to somewhere his influence ends. What you do after that is your business.” He pushed the comm toward me. “Help me get what I need, I’ll make sure you’re on my ship when it leaves. No collar. No contract. No senator who thinks he owns you.”
Flinx sent.
Probably. But calculated didn’t mean untrue.
“I have conditions,” I said.
“Name them.”
“Flinx comes with me.”
“Obviously.”
“No staff casualties. Whatever you’re planning, it doesn’t involve killing people who work here.”
“I’m not here to kill anyone. I’m here to retrieve my property.”
I turned the comm over in my hands. It looked like a standard model. Civilian-grade components. But the weight was wrong. Heavier. Military hardware disguised as something harmless.
“What’s inside the sculpture?” I asked. “What’s so important you’re offering ship passage to a stranger?”
He studied me. Weighing something. Truth, or a comfortable lie.
“There’s something embedded in it,” he said finally. “Something that was stolen from people I care about. I’m taking it back.”
Not the whole truth. But close enough to feel genuine.
“Four days,” I said. “If Tarsus moves the sculpture, it will be right before the event opens. You’ll have a ten-minute window while he’s greeting guests.”
“That’s tight.”
