Rogue Pursuit: A Space Opera Adventure (Shades of Starlight Book 1), page 21
Through the hole in the wall, he saw the rest of the police station, now dark. Small fires flickered throughout. The ceiling also had a new hole, showing blue sky. Debris and smoke clogged the space.
Looked like a bomb went off.
Knowing Cobalt agents, that was exactly what had happened.
He eased to his feet, steadied himself against the wall, and climbed into the main office.
The older cop was attempting to lift a piece of concrete ceiling off his partner. Tai moved to his side and heaved with the man, then pulled the younger guy free.
He was breathing, but unconscious. Tai scanned the room. Chunks still tumbled from the ceiling. Flames engulfed the rear. But the path to the door remained clear. He heaved the man over his shoulder and carried him to the street.
Two cops stood nearby, dirty and stunned, but uninjured, staring the wreckage.
“You there,” he said. “Help me. Inside.”
They blinked, but followed him in. Tai spent several minutes clearing debris, dragging people from the wreckage, giving orders.
At one point, he paused and saw Perrin.
“I leave you alone for one hour,” she said, smirking.
He wiped sweat from his face. “What are you doing?”
“I saw the explosion and wanted to make sure you weren’t dead. When you said you could break out of any prison, I hope this isn’t what you meant.”
“I broke out without violence, thank you. I just stayed to help. This was probably the Cobalt agent. And it was partially my fault he was here in the first place.”
Without speaking, they returned to helping people, as if both knew it was worth risking their mission if it meant saving lives.
Tai was fully aware the cops might lock them up when they finished.
Perrin had brought the small med-kit from the ship and alternated between tending cuts and burns, moving smaller items to clear a path, and comforting people on the street.
The attraction he was trying so hard to fight tackled him again full force. How could he stay mad at someone who truly wanted to help? And how could he do anything but admire her?
Leaving her on the street, Tai pushed through wreckage and dodged flames to reach the back rooms, the only place he hadn’t searched. The fires had dwindled enough to allow him through. He tugged his shirt over his nose and mouth.
A couple prisoners shook the bars of cells that were quickly filling with smoke. He let them out with keys he’d lifted from a cop.
There was no sign of the Cobalt agent.
After everyone was clear and cars had carried the severely wounded to a nearby hospital, the older cop approached Tai. “Thanks for your help.”
“Seemed like you needed it.”
The man nodded. “We certainly weren’t prepared for this. You were right earlier. We have hardly any training. Half the officers are volunteers. The biggest crimes we deal with are bar fights and pickpockets.”
“I suspect the man who did this was a Cobalt operative. Few people would be able to deal with that.”
The man studied him more closely. “You were.”
Tai shrugged. “This is Confed territory. Shouldn’t they provide for you?”
The man snorted. “As long as this planet meets food production quotas, they don’t care what goes on here. We file monthly reports that no one reads. We stopped even trying to follow protocol. Hard to do that when you don’t have tech the protocols require.”
“That’s why you didn’t run an ident scan and used those cuffs that were so easy to escape.”
“Around here, it’s nothing but good, old-fashioned fingerprints in a local database,” the man said as he watched another chunk of ceiling collapse into the now-empty room. “Your tax dollars at work.”
“What do taxes pay for if they won’t even give you shock cuffs?”
“Beats me. We get equipment when the harvesters break down. And they claim they’ll send military help if we’re invaded. Like that’s gonna happen. If we could keep the money ourselves, we might be able to buy what we need from merchants that come through.”
Like Perrin. Tai couldn’t believe he was even considering it, but he wondered if Perrin might bring them cuffs and a simple ident scanner.
The Confed was supposed to provide for its citizens. These people shouldn’t have to worry about basics. Tai twisted his ring, feeling like his job with the Confed government made him guilty by association.
Perrin approached, still beautiful despite smudges on her cheeks with tracks through the grime where sweat had dripped down her temples.
The cop studied her, looked at Tai. “It’s likely the record of your arrest hadn’t been entered in the database yet. I don’t remember bringing anyone in today except a man of Cobalt origin, who blew up my station. But I do remember a couple helpful citizens who lent a hand.”
Perrin grinned, and Tai shook his hand.
“I see why she was worth the trouble,” the man muttered to Tai with a wink.
So did Tai, though he’d be better off if he cut off that feeling before it grew any stronger.
As he and Perrin headed to the ship, tired and dirty and smelling of smoke, an odd sense of contentment settled over him. They’d helped people today. With real, tangible, immediate results.
It was the most satisfying thing he’d done in ages.
22
Perrin trudged out of town, smelling of smoke, dripping with sweat, and fuming at the Cobalt agent for injuring so many innocent people.
She wished she could ask Mak to bring supplies. Maybe Mak could find a way to do it legally. After telling Tai she’d stopped the smuggling, she didn’t dare risk her usual channels.
Tai plodded beside her. His shoulders sagged and his face was pale, but he had a light in his eyes. She admired the way he’d rushed in to help. Both of them had a tendency to see danger and run toward it, rather than away.
It was growing harder to deny she liked him.
“So,” she asked as they neared the landing platform. “What are your opinions on sabotage?”
“Depends who’s doing it. And why.”
“If I told you our friend from the Amber Alliance might have a broken deflector dish, you wouldn’t mind?” She nodded to a familiar ship sitting near theirs.
Tai laughed. “You—” He shook his head, so she didn’t find out what he thought she was. Which was probably safer. “Is our ship ready?”
“Yep.”
It was our ship once more. Good to know they were on the same team again. Too bad she didn’t know which ship belonged to the Cobalt agent. He would’ve gotten a lot more than one broken dish.
Tai patted their ship’s hull. “I thought you might leave without me.”
“I considered it.” But he’d thrown himself off a moving vehicle and let himself get arrested to help her. She’d decided she owed him not to run off while he paid the price for that. The choice had nothing to do with how cold and empty the ship felt without Tai.
He retrieved the camera he’d set. “They took my comp-pad. I’ll have to use the ship’s computer to review footage.”
“Think it shows Kel?”
“Probably not, but there’s always a chance.”
Tai lifted them off and headed through the clouds.
“There are two other wormholes in the system,” Perrin said, “but no way of knowing which Kel took. We’ll have to check them both.”
There was also a chance… No, no need to mention it now. That would be a last resort.
“Where do they lead?” Tai asked.
She checked the charts to confirm she remembered correctly. “Both to small outposts. This is the last heavily populated world unless we head back toward the primaries.”
“Which wormhole is closer?”
“Both are a few hours away. I’ll have to get closer before I can scan for a trail.”
“You pick, then.”
“So you can blame me if I choose wrong?”
“Because I know you’ll want to brag if you choose right.”
“Oh, yeah. Good point.” She grinned and set a course.
Once they were on the way, Tai connected the camera and replayed the footage on the view screen on fast forward. No sign of Kel, but the recording showed the Cobalt agent leaving, a couple hours ahead of them since they’d stayed to help. Now they had to catch both him and Kel—within two days.
As Tai shut off the vid feed, Perrin studied his profile. “I was thinking…”
“That means trouble.”
“I was watching you back there on the planet.”
“I am hard to resist.”
She sniffed. “Hard to resist hitting,” she said. “What I meant was, you looked… different. Chasing that guy. Helping those people. Your face was different from when you use your other… spy talents.”
He frowned.
“You’re good at it. Lying. Hacking. Breaking and entering. But there’s this, I don’t know, set to your jaw or something.”
His sharp, chiseled jaw, that she was trying not to find attractive.
“As if you don’t like it,” she said.
“And?”
“You like helping people. Just seems you enjoy actually helping people, like today. Not the covert, theoretically ‘help’ people stuff.”
He swiveled his chair away. Despite her inelegant words, she thought he understood her meaning. But his closed-off expression and tense shoulders indicated he’d rather not dwell on the issue. “Thanks for that detailed and technical explanation. I have time to shower, right?”
She nodded, deciding not to push the subject. Plus, a shower sounded great.
When they reached the first wormhole, both returned to the bridge. Her scans showed no sign of a ship passing through recently, so they set course for the other.
Tai didn’t rub it in, but the tilt to his mouth suggested he wanted to.
During several minutes of not-uncomfortable silence, Perrin’s thoughts drifted to her crew. Were the ones in prison safe? What about Mak and Dodge? Where were they now, and how were they managing without her?
“Tell me about you and Kel.” Tai’s question caught her off guard. “How you met, what happened.”
She searched for words, unsure she wanted to discuss her ex-boyfriend with someone who knew him so well. Someone who, in another life, she might’ve seen as a future boyfriend. “Why? So you can use it against us at our trials?”
The steadiness in his face told her he recognized the attempt to deflect him but would refuse to give in. “I told you I’d help. Besides, for crimes likes yours, there is no trial.” His half-smile didn’t lessen the reminder, though she suspected he was teasing.
He continued to watch her, waiting.
Oh, well, why not?
“I was delivering a shipment on a station. Kel was talking with my buyer.”
“How old were you?”
“Almost sixteen.”
Tai’s eyes narrowed. “So, too young for Kel.”
She rolled her eyes. “He’d just finished his first year of training and was heading home to visit his family.”
“Was he selling us out even then?”
She gave him a sharp glance. “That’s his story to tell, not mine. We met, that’s all that matters. We spent half a day exploring the station. I was young, never had many friends my age, never dated anyone. And he was cute and he liked me. Also, my dad had died a few months earlier, and I was lonely. He was funny and gentle. A good listener.” The memories brought warmth, with much less sting than she should’ve felt talking about her first boyfriend. “If we’d lived in the same place, it would’ve ended much sooner.”
“Why did it end?”
“He was frustrated that I didn’t want to stay put. We saw each other when we could, but I had too much work to go out of my way very often. When we did meet, I always insisted on being the one to decide where. And I wouldn’t think to tell him personal things. He didn’t like asking. Thought I should know to share.”
“What happened?”
“I stunned him and left him in an alley.”
Tai waited.
Should’ve known he wouldn’t accept that answer.
“He said it wasn’t working; I said okay. That was about six months ago.”
He’d been her first and only boyfriend, her first kiss. The breakup should have hurt more than it did. But while she did like Kel an awful lot, it was more family love like she had for Mak and Dodge. She cried for one night, ate ice cream with Mak, and the next day it was on to somewhere new.
She leaned forward, fixed him with a teasing glare. “I gave you my breakup story. Your turn.”
“I don’t have any good breakup stories.”
She rolled her eyes. “How’d you meet Kel?”
He lifted a shoulder. “We met at orientation before training started. We were assigned as roommates. He’d just moved to Prime from the colonies and, for a whole day, was one of the few people in our class who didn’t know who my mom was. It only took that day for us to become friends, and I knew he liked me, not the connections I offered.”
That was Kel, gifted at seeing past the surface and caring about the person inside. She saw why he and Tai hit it off.
“After training, we decided to stay roommates. Used to get lots of missions since we worked well together. When he was assigned this one, I was jealous. His first off-world, solo assignment. I thought I deserved it.” One corner of his mouth twisted. “But clearly he was a better liar than I ever was, so maybe he was a better spy, too.”
“He had more at stake, that’s all.” She didn’t know why she felt the need to cheer Tai up. “He talked about you, you know. I never knew your name, but he mentioned his best friend. Lying to you killed him.”
“Sounds like you learned more about me than I did you. I knew he was seeing someone, but could never figure out why Kel wouldn’t tell me anything.” He laughed, an unamused exhale. “Makes sense now.”
They were quiet a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded… fragile.
“Why did he do it? Work with the revolution?”
She ran a finger over the corner of the console. “Did he tell you about his childhood?”
“Yeah. But now I don’t know how much is accurate. Just that he grew up on a tertiary world, an ag colony like the one we were just on.”
“His parents run a vegetable farm. He joined the Agency to make a difference for planets like that, but I think he saw pretty fast that change wasn’t on the minds of many people on Prime.”
“So he became a traitor?”
“Traitor is in the eye of the beholder. Like I said, you’ll have to ask him.” She wiggled the console screen before shoving it in place. “Besides, I haven’t talked to him in months. It’s possible he changed and now he’s betraying the Network.”
“So…” Tai slid her a glance. “This Network. How extensive is it? How does it work?”
“Nice try, spy boy.”
He shrugged.
They fell silent, giving her plenty of time to remember good times with Kel before doubt crept in. He’d asked for help, but she didn’t know what he wanted. Where was he now? And when they found him, whose side would he be on? There was lots of betrayal to go around these days.
The second wormhole revealed no trace of a ship, either.
Tai frowned at the screen. “He might still be on the planet. Maybe he knew people there. Do you have any contacts?”
“He told me he didn’t trust anyone. I don’t think he would’ve asked for help. And he knew people were following him, so he wouldn’t put anyone else in danger.”
“Why did he trust you?”
“I’ve been wondering that for days.”
Tai tapped his chin. “Did he go back the way he came?”
It was possible, but she had another idea. She hoped she was wrong about it. Traveling with Tai was giving him way too much information about the Onyx Network, its methods, its sympathizers. But once again, she had no choice.
Maybe she should’ve left him in prison.
She entered a new set of coordinates.
Tai examined them on his screen. “Where are we going?”
“The last wormhole.”
“My records don’t show any more.”
“Your records are wrong.”
He typed into his console. “There used to be another, but it collapsed years ago.”
“It disappeared temporarily years ago,” she said. “It comes and goes.”
His eyes widened. “And you think it’s a good idea to go through it?”
“I think it’s a good idea to check and see if Kel went through it. Unless you want to lounge on the beach and hope he happens to drop by wearing a bikini, carrying a fruity drink.”
“Thanks for the mental picture.” He checked the screen again. “I’m not reading anything.”
“Adjust the infrared sensor to a level of half RME.”
He did. “Wow. How many other wormholes exist like this?”
She shrugged. “I’m picking up two trails. One from two days ago, and one a few hours old. Probably Kel and that Cobalt guy.”
He nodded, but his lips were tight. “Is this safe?”
“How many things in life truly are? You might want to strap in, though.”
She inched the ship toward the coordinates, hoping the wormhole had decided to show up for work today.
It unfurled more slowly than normal, hesitantly, contracting twice before staying open. This one was different from any she’d seen before. The triadic color scheme—purple, teal, and yellow-orange—normally wouldn’t be too unstable. But the colors were faded, pale hues with a heavy dose of white mixed in. It looked sick, like bleached bones lying in the sun.
The ship lurched forward like an old sailing ship fighting a stiff headwind, like the wormhole wasn’t sure it wanted to let them through.
Tai gripped the armrests. “Feels like it’s dying.” His voice was tight, clipped.
“Maybe it is.”
She diverted all possible power to the shielding, which lowered the lighting level on the bridge. The wormhole’s pale colors offered only watery light as a substitute. On the screen, the view flickered occasionally as the shields surrounding the ship flared to keep wormhole particles from destroying them. The deck trembled.
