Rogue Pursuit: A Space Opera Adventure (Shades of Starlight Book 1), page 14
“Your dad took you with him everywhere?”
“Mostly. I enjoyed the adventure, and he enjoyed having someone to teach. We have great crews, more like family than employees, and they liked having a curious kid along. I learned stuff from each of them. Navigating, fixing engines, languages, games from all over the galaxy.”
“And your mom?”
She shifted, but there was nowhere to go and the movement only pushed her further into Tai. “Thought you read about my family history before asking for my help.”
“I did. Just seemed polite to ask. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” He glanced at her, his face close enough she noticed two freckles under his eye, before looking back to the rain.
A miniature bolt of lightning zipped through her, there and gone faster than the real thing. She should be mad he’d researched her. But if he’d done such a thorough background check, and still trusted her enough to ask for help, it meant she’d hidden her true allegiances well. “I don’t mind. She died when I was born. I miss her in a theoretical way, but I never knew her.”
“Was it hard, growing up without a mom?”
“No harder than growing up without a dad.”
He angled his head as if to concede the point.
Although she hadn’t missed her mom most of her life, recently she’d wondered more. Couldn’t help it after her dad died. Her mom had founded the company before meeting her dad, when she wasn’t much older than Perrin was now, and Perrin longed for advice on how to live up to her memory, how to manage it all.
Then she met Kel, and wished for a mom to help her navigate dating. Other crew members had taken the protective role her dad would have, threatening to shoot Kel if he hurt her. Never mind that Kel was trained well enough to kill them all. Of course, he wouldn’t. He even hated killing bore beetles on his family farm.
Her ex and her feelings on managing the company were too personal to discuss with Tai, so she searched for a safe reply.
“Thanks to our crews, in a way, I had lots of family.” She lifted a shoulder. “And there was always a new adventure to look forward to.”
“Sounds like a much different childhood than mine.”
“Rather less learning to lie and kill?”
“I didn’t learn to kill as a child,” he said. “Wait. Does thirteen count as a child?”
She was pretty sure he was joking, but if not, she didn’t want to know.
He peered outside again. “The rain’s let up. Want to switch jobs?”
“Yes, please.”
She stepped out of the harness and into the boots, and Tai showed her how to work the rock clamp.
They continued downward until she found an entrance her scanner indicated led underground.
In a crevice they found a metal spiral staircase leading into the earth, smelling of rust. They shed the rope and boots, and Tai put them in a pack on his back.
The stairs felt endless, stretching into blackness. She saw nothing except the next few stairs, illuminated by the light Tai wore around his head. Her leg muscles trembled.
She kept one hand on the cold rail. “They could use a lift.”
“If you don’t want people dropping by, you have to admit this is an effective way to deter visitors.”
“Still,” she said. “That idea is going in their comment box.”
A faint blue light appeared below, growing brighter as they descended.
The narrow staircase ended at a platform, and the space opened up. They emerged at the top of a giant cavern. Below, water reflected the same blue light, now much brighter, emanating from millions of tiny specks embedded in the walls and ceiling.
Rock teeth jutted up from the water, and stalactites dripped from the ceiling. Around the edges of the water, platforms and walkways had been built into the rock, with a few platforms extending over the water, and an arcing stone bridge connecting two sides. Small rafts were tied to the rocks.
Several square doorways led into the rock, glowing with a yellow, more manmade light. The whole space felt damper than she’d expected. A thick humidity hung in the air, and moisture condensed on her already wet skin. Water dripped, a constant, quiet sound.
The blue glowed filled the space, lit the angles of Tai’s face, made her hands appear slightly blue.
“Well.” More words than that failed her.
“Yeah,” Tai said.
They stood for a minute in silence, staring at the cavern.
This was why she traveled. Kel, Tai, the smuggling, the mission, everything fell away as she took in the view. She could do this all the time. See grand new sights few had ever seen. Admire the beauty in the universe.
Tai’s face reflected her awe, his eyes wide, mouth gaping.
She couldn’t contain a smile.
Footsteps clanged on the metal platform. She and Tai turned as one.
A pale, bald young man appeared on the stairs leading to a lower level. He wore a wrap from the waist down and a sash across his bare chest, and a row of rings pierced his ears from top to earlobe.
“What brings you to the Cave of Souls?” He spoke in a slow, calm voice, in the Common Tongue but as if he were in no hurry to get the words out.
That name wasn’t at all creepy.
“Hama naskalo,” Tai said. “We’re seeking a friend who may have passed this way.”
They’d decided to tell the truth here, as much as possible, agreeing you shouldn’t lie to monks no matter their faith or yours. But Tai hadn’t mentioned he’d learned the local lingo. Or mastered the accent.
The man clasped his hands in front of him. “All who seek refuge here do so in anonymity. It is why we formed this city.”
“He wasn’t exactly seeking refuge,” Perrin said. “Just stopping by.”
“No matter the purpose, we respect the privacy of all.”
“Can you at least tell us if any outsiders have been here in the last two days?”
A frown appeared on his previously calm countenance. “Once a person arrives, we no longer consider them an outsider. The world outside is of little concern to us.”
She didn’t understand how people could live underground—even in a place as unique as this—and not be interested in the wider universe beyond. Didn’t this cave make them realize how much more there was to see?
Tai shot Perrin a warning glance. “We understand and respect your need for privacy. I don’t suppose you have supplies for fixing a ship? Wormholes can be tough on deflector dishes.”
Perrin didn’t miss the fact that Tai didn’t lie. He gave the idea they needed help without violating his odd but endearing preference for honesty.
“We only have two ships capable of off-world travel, and we rarely use them, so we do not keep spare parts. But I can show you to the scrap yard.”
Maybe someone there would be more willing to answer questions.
Tai must’ve agreed. “Thank you, that would be helpful.”
The man descended the stairs leading toward the water.
She leaned toward Tai. “Where did you learn their greetings?”
“Looked it up before we landed.”
She was impressed. Was it because he didn’t have a badge to flash around? No, she suspected even if he did, he’d try the nice way first. The spy way—gain their trust, figure out what they want and how you can work with them. Was he doing that with her?
The monk led them down a series of platforms until they reached the walkway directly above the surface of the water. She felt like she was in a blue orb, with lights above and on the walls, and reflected almost as brightly in the water below.
“What are the lights?” She stumbled into Tai because she’d been admiring the view. He caught her before she tested the strength of the railing.
“Glow worms.”
“Like insects?”
“Yes. Both the larval and adult phase are luminescent. The light is the result of a chemical reaction. Please don’t touch anything.”
The suspended walkway led to a path carved into the rock, along a ledge over the water.
They had to duck through a roughly shaped gap to enter a room that appeared natural, revealing caverns within. Light panels replaced the glow worms, still dimmer than she was used to, probably to protect their eyes and the insects.
They passed through a hydroponics chamber where simulated UV lights shone on crops. Past an empty chapel and an office. Chants echoed from another area of the cavern, rebounding off stone, an unworldly sound.
For her first time in a cave, she felt surprisingly not claustrophobic. Must’ve been the numerous pathways and rooms. An entire city’s worth of space, all of stone beneath the ground.
A narrow tunnel opened into a large cave. Piles of metal and discarded tech filled the space.
The first monk handed them off to another, a man a few years older and dressed the same. He was sorting through pieces of wiring.
“I don’t suppose you have parts for a broken deflector dish?” Tai watched the man carefully.
Perrin wondered what Tai looked for in the man’s reply. What signs revealed he was lying or hiding something?
“You are welcome to search,” the man said, “but I make no guarantees.”
“Do you have many visitors in here? I imagine lots of people need help after the wormholes.”
“We like to maintain our isolation but never turn anyone away.”
She hoped Tai was learning more from the guy’s answers than she was.
Tai inclined his head and said, “Nama hala, thank you for your time,” before moving away.
They pretended to dig through piles, moving steadily away from the man to give themselves privacy.
In a lowered voice Tai said, “You’d think these guys trained at the Agency. I can’t read him.”
Maybe she was safe, too.
“Kel’s good with ships, and we had training on how to improvise repairs. If he came and found what he needed, he could’ve fixed his ship and moved on already.”
He would’ve been in a hurry, but she couldn’t tell Tai. “So what now? Search the whole surface for another ship in case he’s still working on repairs? Or check the wormhole for a trail?”
Tai picked up a broken coupler and put it down again. “It could take weeks to search the surface. I say we try the wormhole. If there’s no trail, we can always come back.”
“I’m sure the monks would love that.”
They left the scrap room and made their way toward the entrance. When they reached the second to last room, footsteps and voices came from the platform.
Tai peered into the cavern and yanked his head back inside. “Shades.”
“The Amber guy?”
“Worse,” he said. “My mom.”
14
The voices grew louder, two people arguing as they walked the same path he and Perrin had.
Tai withdrew into the room, pulling Perrin with him.
“I don’t care if you’re not an official colony of the Ruby Confederation.” His mom’s voice bounced off rock. “This man is dangerous, and if I find out you helped him, I will have Confed troops out here faster than you can say monk.”
Not good. His mom had reached full-on bad cop mode. Her authoritative tone clashed with the peacefulness of this refuge and the monks’ soft voices. He had a sudden desire to apologize on her behalf.
“Harboring a criminal is grounds for imprisonment,” his mom continued. “The Confed’s extradition policy extends to all Confed worlds and nonaffiliated or independent settlements.”
The monk’s reply was too quiet for Tai to hear, but he suspected it involved telling his mom where to shove the Confed’s policy. Politely, of course.
Undercover jobs required blending in, becoming the person you needed to be. But once a person reached his mom’s position, authority took over. She had no need to be stealthy, with the entire might of the Ruby Confederation behind her. Subtlety was an unnecessary time waster.
This was how she’d trained him to be when situations called for it. The way Confed agents, officials, and officers often acted. Assured of their rightness. Justified in their actions as for the greater good.
For the first time, he wasn’t sure he liked it.
He retreated to the scrap yard and the man still organizing wires. “I don’t suppose there’s another way out? Like you said, this is a refuge, right?”
The monk shrugged and led them through a different door, to another set of caves and walkways. The volume of the chants increased. They passed monks gardening, writing, cleaning, singing as one while they worked.
Their new path rejoined the platforms a few levels above the water. The monk left them and retreated, dislodging a rock that splashed into the water.
Tai glanced down.
His mother must’ve stepped inside the caverns, but McCombs lingered in a doorway off the rock path. Looking up. Tai wasn’t sure how well the man could see from this distance. He might not recognize Tai, but based on their clothes, he and Perrin clearly weren’t monks.
“Go,” he told Perrin.
“Lawson?” McCombs voice echoed through the cave. “Is that you?”
Tai and Perrin raced up the stairs, feet clanging, the narrow staircase rattling. Tai hated to retreat, but right now it was their best option.
He waited until they’d climbed so high the cave was near pitch-black before turning on his light. One set of footsteps followed, presumably McCombs while his mom continued to yell at the poor monks.
“How far will he follow us?” Perrin huffed out the words.
“If he suspects it’s me? All the way to the surface.”
As they ran, he wrangled the boots out of his pack. They weren’t meant to hold the weight of two people, but he’d have to risk it.
As soon as he emerged from the cave, he yanked them on. “Climb on.”
Perrin’s brows drew together and she eyed the boots, but she jumped on his back.
He activated the thrusters, and the boots emitted a whirring sound that had been absent earlier. They shot upward.
Mostly. The boots lurched, propelled them upward, lurched again. They bumped rocks, rose in bursts interspersed with pauses when Tai feared the boots might fail entirely. Perrin’s legs tightened around his sides, her arms around his neck.
“If you strangle me, we’ll definitely crash.”
She laughed and loosened her arms. “Sorry.”
“You should be more sorry for laughing. I don’t know if these will last.”
“Next time bring two pairs.”
He’d been lucky to find these in the cabin. They’d belonged to his dad, and he hadn’t used them since childhood. “Didn’t exactly have the money for new ones.”
The whining was definitely growing louder, audible over the wind.
Their ship appeared above. The boots’ power flickered. They lurched again. Tai steered closer to the cliffs in case they had to climb. Below them, McCombs was a dark speck growing larger as he navigated with a jetpack much more powerful than Tai’s dying boots.
They stumbled onto the ledge where their ship waited, the boots sending them tumbling to the ground with one final push before the power cells died.
The sky had cleared, though cloud banks still hugged the horizon, flickering with lightning. Straight above were the natural stars only visible on planets without cities and lights and domes and shipyards, enough of them to color the sky more silver than black. A meteor storm sent dozens of shooting stars toward the western horizon.
A canyon opened inside him, starlight flooding in.
“Wow.” Perrin tipped her head back. “I’ve seen some good skies, but this place… I can’t believe I never landed here before.”
The beauty stole his words.
He shook his head. No time for stargazing. They jumped to their feet and ran for the ship. Tai ducked inside as the hum of McCombs’s jetpack grew louder. He pounded the button to shut the hatch before the man cleared the cliff.
Tai had picked a generic vessel that could’ve come from any planet, and McCombs had no way to see inside and confirm it was Tai he’d been chasing.
“Start the engines,” he told Perrin as his mind raced to form a plan. He didn’t know where McCombs and his mom had landed, but he could count on McCombs following them as soon as he reached his ship.
Perrin gave him no smart reply, just did as he asked.
He loaded a topographic map of their surroundings and scanned the canyon then displayed the weather radar. As quickly as he could, he calculated routes, distances, and the direction of the storm.
“Buckle up. I’m going to hide our trail.”
She strapped in. “Are we assuming Kel is gone?”
“No choice to stick around. We’ll mask our trail with the iron deposits in the canyons and run for the wormhole, and you can scan to make sure a ship went through.”
He lifted off.
McCombs jetted past. As Tai flew away from the cliff, he spotted another ship parked in a branch of the canyon nearby.
“That’s a Confed ship,” he said. “It’ll have weapons.”
“Will he shoot us?”
“Probably not. I hope. My mom would want to know who we are and what we’re doing here, not kill us. Plus, she’d be rather upset if McCombs killed her only son.”
Rock loomed on either side, and Tai steered the ship deep into the canyon.
“He’s hailing us,” Perrin said.
“Ignore it.”
“Are you sure? I can try to talk him out of shooting us.”
“Don’t want to risk it.” McCombs lacked his mom’s skills but was still a trained agent. Better not to give him anything to work with.
Tai focused on weaving in and out of formations, angling sideways to fit through narrow gaps, dipping under overhangs. He aimed them toward the storm, hoping the lightning would further conceal their trail.
“Sure,” Perrin said, “you don’t like wormholes, but this is fine.”
“This won’t fold on me.”
“No, we’ll just get zapped by lightning. Or crash into a canyon.”
He glanced at her, but she didn’t look scared. Teasing him, then.
To repay her for the wormholes, he pulled especially close, brushed up and over a giant rock, and plunged into a crevasse.
