Girl From Above: Escape (The 1000 Revolution Book 2)
Author: DaCosta, Pippa
Date: 2015-06-19

Girl From Above

Book #2: Escape (The 1000 Revolution)

Pippa DaCosta

Contents

Copyright

Summary

1.
Chapter One: Francisca

2.
Chapter Two: #1001

3.
Chapter Three: Caleb

4.
Chapter Four: #1001

5.
Chapter Five: Caleb

6.
Chapter Six: #1001

7.
Chapter Seven: Caleb

8.
Chapter Eight: #1001

9.
Chapter Nine: Caleb

10.
Chapter Ten: #1001

11.
Chapter Eleven: Caleb

12.
Chapter Twelve: #1001

13.
Chapter Thirteen: Caleb

14.
Chapter Fourteen: #1001

15.
Chapter Fifteen: Caleb

16.
Chapter Sixteen: #1001

17.
Chapter Seventeen: Caleb

Also by Pippa DaCosta

About the Author

‘Girl From Above’ Book #2, Escape.

The #1000 Revolution

Pippa DaCosta

Urban Fantasy & Science Fiction Author

Subscribe to her mailing list here.

Copyright © 2015 Pippa DaCosta.

June 2015 Edition. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictions, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Novel length. 50,000 words.

Kindle US Edition.

Version 1.0
www.pippadacosta.com

Summary

"There’s no quicker way to get yourself killed than trusting someone in the black." ~ Caleb.

Caleb Shepperd knows Fran has her own motives for breaking him out of prison, but he’s not about to let a little thing like past betrayal stand in the way of his next paycheck—until he’s forced to meet with the sexy and psychotic pirate, Adelina Cande. They’ve met before, when he seduced her, cleared out her credit account, and left her for dead in the black.

Caleb figures Adelina is holding a grudge when she plants a bomb on his ship and demands he steal a fleet freighter for her, that is, if he ever wants to fly again. Get him drunk enough and he’ll try anything once, but this time, he has to balance his own greed with the needs of a vengeful pirate and the schemes of his dubious second-in-command. What could possibly go wrong?

In the heart of Chitec headquarters, the synth known as #1001 enlists an eager young technician to aid in her escape, but it’s not freedom she wants; it’s revenge. The memories of a life that don’t belong to her demand she finishes what she started. She believes she killed Caleb, and now she's targeting Chitec CEO, Chen Hung. Not even the hopeful technician can dissuade her.

Synthetics don't make mistakes.

She thought she knew the truth.

She was wrong.

The fast-paced, sexy sci-fi series continues in Girl From Above 2: Escape. Reviewers call Girl From Above an exciting mix of Firefly, Ex_Machina, and Blade Runner. WARNING: Adult content. 18+ only.

Chapter One: Francisca

I needed a phencyl fix, and soon. Withdrawal and the stifling heat inside the admiral’s office plucked on my already frayed nerves.

“Caleb—Captain Shepperd was our best and most viable route to the Nine.” I heard the strain in my voice and hoped Admiral Jarvis didn’t.

“He was, at best, a dubious lead,” Jarvis said, “and at worst, a criminal actively working to undermine the laws protecting the nine systems. Shepperd was a dangerous man.”

Dangerous was one word for Caleb Shepperd. I could think of many others that would make the seasoned admiral blush.

A stinger shuttle buzzed past the office windows. Sunlight flared off its shielding and sliced into the room. I turned my face away from the glare with a wince and pulled my collar away from my neck. “I almost had hi—”

“Special Commander Franco, after two years, what you had was a string of smuggling offences and no solid evidence of his connection to the Fenrir Nine.” Jarvis settled back into his chair and sighed. “Despite your assurances, he didn’t trust you.”

“He doesn’t trust anyone and probably never will.”

I’d been sent undercover among the smugglers to infiltrate the Nine. For two Earth years, I’d played the part of the second-in-command of the tugship, Starscream. The admiral only knew the operational facts I’d reported back to him—just words on a screen. He couldn’t begin to understand Captain Shepperd. After two years of living side by side with the captain, I’d barely scraped the surface.

“We knew the Nine were on Mimir. Had you waited to give the order—if Chitec had waited …”

The admiral’s ruddy cheeks reddened further. “Chitec had nothing to do with the order to bring Shepperd in.”

Bullshit.

I clamped my jaw closed, locking the curse behind my teeth. One of the hardest things about returning to fleet headquarters had been learning when to keep my mouth shut and my thoughts off my face. You’d think after two years of pretending to be someone else, I could fake it. But with Shepperd on Starscream, I’d been free to do and say whatever I wanted. I missed that freedom. I missed a lot of things about that tugship and her obstinate captain. Why the hell did I come back to the wretched heat of old Earth and fleet’s suffocating regulations?

I looked directly into the admiral’s flint-colored eyes—the kind of old eyes that had seen the nine systems before the Blackout, when space travel had seemed limitless and the jumpgates had heralded a new age. Then the main gate had failed, causing the chain of intra-system travel to collapse. Overnight, everything had gone to shit. The Blackout had happened long before my time—long before the nine systems had turned into the cesspool of corruption they were today. So Jarvis and his ilk had a skewed perspective of the worlds we lived in. They’d watched the systems prevail and had witnessed wars and riots almost destroy it all. I’d sat through my history lessons. I knew it had gotten as bad as it could get when human beings started fighting over dwindling resources. The admiral came from the generation that worshipped the start-up company that had stepped in to fix the main gate, setting everything right: our saviors, Chitec.

Everyone adored Chitec, everyone except Caleb Shepperd and the Fenrir Nine.

The admiral blinked, breaking my stare. His charade was pointless. We both knew he was under Chitec’s thumb, just like the rest of fleet.

“I’m assigning you to Lyra patrol,” Jarvis said. “There’s been an upsurge in demonstrations, some turning violent.”

He tapped the holoscreen embedded in the desktop. “You can join the patrols currently subduing the unrest. Something that’s less morally taxing will do you good.”

I hid my smile by pinching my lips together, and swallowed. Morally taxing? He didn’t know half the things I’d done. If he did, he’d strip me of my rank and throw me into Asgard, alongside Shepperd. That wasn’t such a bad idea. I needed a way to convince Shepperd I was legitimate. What better way than getting him out of prison?

“My cover is solid. I can go back in.”

“I don’t think that would be wise.” He continued to tap-tap on his screen, ignoring me as though I’d already been dismissed.

“Are you telling me I spent two years on the fringes of the nine systems for nothing? You know I can do this. I’m the only one who can.”

“If the captain is still alive,” he said without looking up, “I doubt there’s much left of him.”

Shepperd would survive Asgard. He had before. He’d fight to his last breath, bare-knuckled and down to the bone, until he was the last man standing. “He’s our only confirmed link to the Nine. When you blew their Mimir warehouses to bits, they scattered. We need him. He’ll find them for us.”

The admiral skipped his gaze over to me. “And how do you propose we get him out of Asgard without certain influential people noticing?”

And right there, in the twitch of his cheek and the slight sideways glance, the admiral had admitted to being figuratively in bed with Chen Hung, CEO of Chitec. I had no doubt who had issued the order for fleet to hunt Shepperd down and bring him in, dead or alive, and thus ruining two years of undercover ops.

I unbuttoned the first few buttons of my shirt and shifted in my the seat. Sweat trickled down my back.

“He’ll be prisoner-chipped. You’ve read my reports. I have contacts from my time with Shepperd. I can get inside Asgard’s airspace. All I need is an ID scanner to locate him. If you could get me his prisoner number?” I could make this work, but not without the admiral’s help. “Let me go in.”

“To Asgard?” Jarvis spluttered. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll be ripped to shreds.”

He would think that. The admiral only knew me as Special Commander Francisca Franco, all buttoned up in starlight-white fleet uniform without a single hair out of place. He didn’t know Fran, Starscream’s pilot and Shepperd’s second.

“I’ll go in armed. I only need to be there long enough to locate Shepperd. Once out, he’ll keep a low profile. He won’t want Chitec knowing he’s free any more than you do.”

Admiral Jarvis hesitated long enough for me to know I almost had him convinced.

“You need the Nine brought to justice. They can’t be allowed to stockpile weapons and recruit the independents to their cause. Fleet can’t catch them. It’s embarrassing.”

He swallowed and kept his gaze away from mine.

“It would make your career.”

“I know what it would do to my career, Commander Franco.” He sat back in his chair again and appraised me. “I am perfectly aware of what’s at stake.”

“So, what have you got to lose? Me? What’s another few cycles?”

“You had two years. What makes you believe he’ll trust you now?”

“Because I’m going to get his ass out of Asgard.”

We both know this has to be done.

I interlocked my hands in my lap, fighting back the shakes. I should have jacked up before this meeting. Once out that door, I’d be heading straight for the nearest dealer, after I ditched the fucking uniform.

Admiral Jarvis pursed his lips in thought.

“Mister Hung has been distracted by internal issues since his head of operations died. Now would be the time to utilize Shepperd. It was regrettable that we weren’t able to catch him in the act, as it were.” His eyes flicked to me. “That is assuming you can get into Asgard’s airspace, of which I am not convinced. It’s a prison, not a holiday camp.”

I had some smuggler tricks up my sleeves. “Let me worry about that.”

Just agree so I can get off this fucking beaten old Earth and back-in-black where I belong.

I’d deliberately omitted certain aspects of my time undercover from the official reports. Aspects like certain connections I’d made whilst dealing phencyl on the side.

“If you die in Asgard, what am I supposed to tell High Command?”

I snorted a laugh. “If I die in Asgard, nobody needs to know. This ops is all deniable. We aren’t even having this conversation.”

I leaned forward. “Like I said, what have you got to lose?”

I could almost see the cogs turning in that ego-bloated head of his. Jarvis’s career was startling only in its mediocrity. He’d be up for retirement soon. A shiny new medal would look fabulous in his otherwise sparse collection—something to show the grandkids.

His expression twitched, the cracks showing just enough for me to know I’d won him over.

“I can’t authorize this,” he said. “Not officially. I’ll have to log you as taking the Lyra position, and what you do in your own time is of no concern to me.”

With a sigh, he entered the necessary information on his screen.

“I just need some time, a ship, and for fleet to look the other way.”

“A ship?” he exclaimed. “How am I going to justify—”

“I know where to get one. It won’t be missed.”

Though it had been a month, a blast in low atmosphere would blow the dust out of Starscream’s ducts. Just the thought of getting back in her flight chair tingled the fine hairs on the back of my neck. I needed to be out there, back-in-black. If I spent another week in this stifling uniform, surrounded by the pristine whiteness of fleet headquarters and the fucking awful old-Earth heat, I would snap.

“Give me a cycle—just one cycle—and I’ll have the Nine for you, Admiral.”

“Very well. If you don’t produce results, well I suppose we’ll have to discuss the remainder of your fleet career.”

Fucking bastard. I’ve given you and fleet eight years, and I’m the best undercover commander you’re ever going to have.

“Of course.”

“Dismissed.”

I strode from the office, tore off my fleet uniform jacket while descending the stairs, and flicked open a few more shirt buttons. The administration staff could gawk all they wanted; I’d be off this rock soon, right after I’d lost myself in the high I’d been craving all day. Tomorrow, I’d be back behind Starscream’s flight controls—back-in-black. It couldn’t come soon enough.

Chapter Two: #1001

“Everything will be all right.”

I’d heard his voice before, yesterday, or an hour ago, or a week. He talked to himself, to me, and to others. He talked about virtual mechanics, wandering protocols, and diagnostics—mine. With sleep came darkness. I didn’t dream, but while I was awake, there was darkness too, punctured by voices and whispers.

“You’ll be all right. I can make everything look perfectly normal.”

In the dark, I wanted to tell him that I’d followed orders, but the words refused to be spoken. Doctor Leanne Grossman had made sure I could never speak of her, of what she’d done, and of what I’d done for her. I’d stabbed her in the eye—killed her—for freeing me.

“There.”

I fluttered my eyes open and blinked against the sharp light of the lab. The stainless steel and dazzling glass surroundings screamed Chitec. My eyes adjusted to the artificial brightness, only for me to realize I was trussed naked to an examination table, tilted to an upright position. A nearby bank of monitors beeped and chimed. I tasted dry, recycled air and sucked it through my cracked lips.

“Whoa there. It’s okay. Damn …” He—the man with the familiar voice—lunged for a monitor and tapped a few buttons, silencing the alarms. “There, that won’t do. That really won’t do.”

He faced me, swept his lab coat back, and tucked a hand into his pants pocket. The most absurd smile brightened his face, as if he were happy to see me. Intelligence danced in his soft brown eyes.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m the one who’s getting you out of here.” He waved a throwaway gesture. “But you can’t keep acting out. The others are much more stable. I’ve done what I can. We’d better hope it’s enough.”

Ignoring him, I tugged on my restraints again. He rattled off a string of maintenance terms and jargon. He couldn’t get me out of here. He barely looked old enough to shave and almost too young to be a technician. Wait … a Chitec technician wanted to help me escape?

“I am Number One Thousand And One. Why would you want to help me?”

I looked him over again while running his face through my internal recognition systems. At twenty-one, he was older than he looked. No parents—both had been killed in riots on his home world—but he did have a younger sister. His dataprint contained little else of interest. It took me less than a second to learn the facts of his short life. I might have dismissed him just as quickly, had I not been restrained and in need of assistance.

“Let’s do this properly. Hi, One Thousand And One. I’m pleased to meet you. My name is James.” His smile twitched and his gaze darted about the lab. He moved in short bursts, all flicks and glances like skittish prey. “We’re really going to have to come up with a better name for you once we’re outside.”

“Outside?”

“That’s where you were going before the guards disabled you, right?”

I clenched my teeth. Just a few more steps and I would have escaped. It was a wonder Chitec hadn’t decommissioned me. I was one too many, a risk to their entire operation and to their CEO, Chen Hung. And yet I’d woken up as myself. Perhaps the young technician had already helped me, but why?

“Sorry, you won’t find anything of interest in my dataprint. This lab is my life.” He didn’t seem sorry, quite the opposite. “For a little while, I feared they’d immediately decommission you, especially after, well”—he focused on the monitors, eager to look away from me—“after you killed Grossman. They told me it was an accident.”

“I want to live.” It seemed like a reasonable motive for killing someone who’d been about to authorize my death.

He navigated the screens with the efficiency of someone who’d spent years in Chitec’s laboratories.

“Of course you do. You’re programmed for self-preservation. You anticipated Chitec’s move to have you decommissioned and acted in a way your processes deemed acceptable, especially considering how your failsafe had been disabled.” His gaze snapped back to me. “That should never have happened. I’m not surprised Chitec has kept your existence confidential. A mistake like that could bring the entire life-ever-after program into question.”

My programing had kept me alive? It didn’t feel like programming. A dead girl’s memories populating my thoughts weren’t programming.

“That’s not what happened. I am not what you think I am.” I tugged again on my restraints.

He gave me an easy, disarming smile. “I know, and that’s our little secret. The official report is a little different from my personal conclusion.”

His constant micro-movements buzzed with energy—a smile here, a glance there, a lick of his lips, and a flick of his gaze. I watched it all, drinking in everything about him.

An almost indecipherable Jotunheim accent, deliberately subdued. Conclusion: shame. Unconfirmed.

Scuffed and worn shoes. Conclusion: personal appearance; low priority.

Outwardly clean-shaven, spotlessly clean lab coat. Conclusion: career takes precedence.

Young for career status. Conclusion: ambitious.

“Do you know what happened to me?”

He dragged a hand across his face and flicked his gaze upward.

“The problem is, just as quickly as I fix your errors, more emerge,” he said, either deliberately avoiding my question or distracted by the problem that was me. “You need to temper your internal systems if we’re going to pull this off.”

And he was in motion again, checking the screens.

“Pull what off?”

“Escape.”

I frowned. “Is this Janus?”

“Janus? Yes.”

I’d killed Leanne Grossman. I’d overwritten Chitec’s orders with my own. How was I still alive?

“Why haven’t they decommissioned me?”

James lifted his chin.

“Your father forbade the decommission order, at least for a short while.” He swallowed, and his face saddened. “They think I don’t know who you are, but I’ve seen inside your synthetic datafiles. I know you … Haley.”

He’d expected me to react, so when I blinked back at him, my expression schooled, he frowned.

“He’s not my father,” I said flatly. “I’m One Thousand and One. Haley is an uploaded memory, digitally encoded neuro-signals, a data stream.”

James’s frown cut deeper. “Haley or Number One Thousand and One, Chen Hung is the father of all synthetics. They were his brainchild. He created you. Besides, what is human consciousness if not a data stream? A means for human beings to harvest information and interpret the world around them?”

“I wouldn’t know.” And while trying to determine my next course of action, I didn’t particularly care.

It wasn’t over. If I died, the information—the secrets—I held about Chitec, the one thousand synthetics, and CEO Chen Hung died with me. But more than that, I wanted to live. Some intangible part of me wanted to crawl from my synthetic cage and be free. Before my memories, before Haley, there was nothing. Everything ended where it began. I couldn’t let there be nothing again. The nothing was a dark and hungry thing. The nothing was the machine. The living part of me, the part rich with sensations and colors and fear—that part would survive. I wasn’t finished yet.

James came forward and stood close enough for me to see concern tightening his facial expression and hear the uptick of his heart. What was he afraid of? Me or something else—someone else?

“Where is Chen Hung?” I asked quietly.

James’s eyes widened and he stepped back, breaking the thread of tension that had tightened between us.

“Right now? In his tower probably. I don’t know where exactly, and even if I did, I’m not sure I’d tell you.”

“Why?”

His eyes narrowed. “Because I’m not entirely convinced you wouldn’t try to do something crazy.”

I didn’t reply. That was answer enough. What I was planning wasn’t crazy; it was simple. Chen Hung, my benefactor, my father, the man who’d killed his daughter and had uploaded her dataprint—a young lifetime of thoughts, transactions, and dreams—into my synthetic body—a body that was one too many and shouldn’t exist—would die. I was his mistake, and I’d make him pay.

The heat of unrequited revenge throbbed in my chest, as warm and beating as the throb of my power core. I knew revenge like the ghost of an old friend. Revenge had driven me to kill Doctor Grossman with a pen. Revenge had driven me to kill Caleb Shepperd, the man who’d once watched me die. My thoughts stuttered at the memory. I hadn’t been thinking clearly during those moments on the Mimir dock, or maybe I’d been thinking too clearly.

“Is the smuggler dead?” I whispered.

James mumbled, “Who?”

His attention had strayed back to the monitors.

“Caleb Shepperd, captain of the Starscream Independent, tug number six-zero-six.”

Caleb had once watched Haley die, had watched her father kill her. I had her memories and could see it all so clearly: the resolute determination in her father’s eyes. I could experience it, the thudding of my heart, beating like a drum in my ears, and the burn in my chest as I’d fought to breathe. I relived the memory as if it were my own. I remembered Shepperd watching it all. He’d deserved to suffer, hadn’t he?

“Shepperd … Shepperd…. Sounds familiar, but I don’t think I know him.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t know much of anything beyond this lab, and certainly nothing of life in the black.”

My chest tightened. Had I hoped Shepperd had lived? No warnings sparked to life, and yet I still felt the ghost of emotions in my synthetic blood and flesh. I’d killed Caleb Shepperd. I’d followed my orders. And deep inside, among wires and underneath polymer skin, in a place I couldn’t account for, the ache of loss ate into me. It shouldn’t have been possible. I shouldn’t have felt anything. But I was the impossible made possible. Fake made real. A ghost in my own machine. I was one more.

James clicked his fingers in front of my face and grinned. “You didn’t hear a word I just said, did you?”

“No, I was”—I blinked myself back into the present—“remembering.”

His grin grew. His smile was honest. Caleb’s had been a lie.

“It will be a terrible injustice if they kill you. There’s already enough injustice in the nine systems, so I have a plan. It’ll mean the end of my career—a career that’s just starting, by the way—but I will get you out of here.”

“Why?”

He didn’t know me. He didn’t owe me anything. He knew what I was capable of. Perhaps he wasn’t as intelligent as he appeared.

He reached up and began loosening my restraints, bringing his face close enough to mine that I could see flecks of green in his hazel eyes.

“Because we were once friends, and I can’t not help you, Haley.”

Chapter Three: Caleb

The catcalls and screams didn’t carry far in Asgard’s choking forests. Giant trees devoured the sound, absorbing it the way they did with the toxic air above the canopy. Wedged on a tree branch, I tucked my chin into my chest, pulled my cap down, and hoped the bastard being tortured died quickly so I could get some shut-eye.

I’d tried to save a new arrival once, during my first stay in Asgard. I snuck him away from the foxes, thinking I was doing him a favor. That had been in the early days when I’d thought I could save people, as if I could make myself into some kind of fuckin’ hero. I wasn’t my brother. The inmate had died, eaten by a growler. If you can’t save yourself in Asgard, you’re already dead—breathing and running, but dead all the same.

The screams cut off. Trees groaned like living things, and then the hoots and hollers started up again. Those rapid barks were how they’d gotten their name, the foxes. Now dead, at least their victim wouldn’t witness what they’d do to his body.

I dropped my head back and let the noise ride right over me. I must have drifted off, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, because when I opened my eyes, burnt-orange light filtered through the canopy. No sky. I hadn’t seen the sky in weeks, maybe even months. It didn’t matter. Only the days mattered. I shifted on the branch to work the aches out and listened. The air hung limp among the trees. When the voices carried over to me, I could hear every word. The foxes had a new catch, a woman, and they were planning to savor her.

I adjusted my position. Keeping my movements slow, I eased off my perch and moved through the latticework of branches, staying close to the trunk, where my weight wouldn’t disturb the foliage. The acrid smell of decaying flesh and fresh death lingered in a fug around the foxes’ camp. Their fire had burned low, but there was no mistaking the cooked pork smell of roasted human flesh. The parts they didn’t eat would be put to use as clothing or tools. It had taken ten nights before the sights and smells of the camp no longer had me retching. I’d deliberately forgotten the worst of Asgard, but forgetting was no longer an option.

From my vantage point high up in the trees circling the camp, I’d counted eight men and women. Their patrol would be nearby, looking for fresh meat. The woman was lying motionless on her side, facing away, with her hands tied behind her back. Mud and what looked like blood peppered her gray fatigues. The foxes watched the gate night and day, picking off any new arrivals that couldn’t run fast enough. She looked like a runner—slim, with enough muscle to put up a good fight. She might have stood a chance if they didn’t hunt in packs. They’d only kept her alive because they’d already eaten. In a few hours, she’d wish they’d killed her.

I crouched and rubbed a hand over my eyes. New inmate like her, if the foxes hadn’t gotten her, the growlers would have. If she couldn’t save herself, there was no point in me trying to save her. Give me a few more cycles and I’d likely be among those foxes. What other option was there?

She turned her head enough for me to catch a glimpse of her face, both beautiful and fierce. Francisca.

I grabbed the trunk, steadying myself before I could fall out of the goddamn tree.

How in the nine systems is she here?

She’d cut her dark hair pixie short, but I couldn’t mistake those piercing green eyes and the Celtic dragon tattoo wrapped around her forearm.

Fuck. That. Bitch. She screwed up my contract with the Nine, dumped my ass on Mimir, and now she shows up in Asgard, getting herself caught?

One of the foxes moved closer to Fran and said something that elicited a quick response from that sharp tongue of hers. The fox, a woman, kicked Fran in the back. She arched around the impact but didn’t cry out. It would take more than a few kicks to break Fran. She’d fight, and they’d still win.

I sure wasn’t getting any sleep now.

The easiest thing for me to do would be to leave her here. I’d tried leaving her behind before, though it hadn’t gone so well. I could lie to myself all the fuck I wanted. I might even make it away from the camp, but I’d never last the night knowing what they’d do to her. I wasn’t completely dead inside—not yet. At least her arrival broke up the monotony. I just needed to figure out how to get in and get her past a small horde of flesh-eating fuckers before dark—if she lasted that long.

The foxes milled around their camp throughout much of the day. I managed to doze off on my perch, only to be awoken when the howls and yips started up again.

The filtered orange light had darkened to red, breeding layers of shadows through the trees. That’s where I moved, weaving through the branches, keeping low and keeping quiet.

They’d moved Fran between the huts at the back of their camp and largely ignored her while they stoked the fire for the feast to come. She sat up, knees pulled to her chest. I inched farther out on a tree limb and watched Fran maneuver her tied hands toward her boot. I knew from experience she was always armed, which begged the question: How did she get a weapon into Asgard? The transport ship guards would have stripped her clean before shoving her through the gates. She couldn’t have snuck a weapon inside, unless she’d gotten in by other means.

A smile crept across my lips. Fran’s lithe fingers found the dagger strapped to her shin. She tugged it free and immediately sawed at her leather bindings. Francisca Olga Franco: best fuckin’ pilot this side of the nine systems and sharp as that blade.

Her ties snapped. She threw them off and was on her feet and running in the next second. Shouts rose up from the foxes. The chase was on.

I dropped through the cover, landed with a jarring thump, and sprang forward, charging into the shadows after them.

I tackled the first fox side-on, slamming him against a tree trunk hard enough to rattle his skull, and finished him off with a loose fist to the face. He deserved more. The thrill lacing my veins with adrenalin demanded I finish him, but Fran’s cry tugged me away. I hunted down the sounds of a scuffle and found Fran scrabbling around the forest floor, reaching for her dagger, while one of the foxes clawed at her legs, trying to drag her back to him. I kicked out and cracked my heel into his jaw, whipping his head back.

“Heads-up.” Fran tossed me the dagger.

I snatched it out of the air and plunged it between his shoulder blades. He let out a god-awful scream that tore through the trees. Now they’d all be on us. Pulling the blade free, I yanked on his hair, drew his head back, and cut his throat.

Hoots and yowls barreled through the trees. I grabbed Fran’s hand, yanked her to her feet, and pulled her into a run. She stayed with me, weaving through lashing branches and bounding over rotting wood. A scream sailed through the trees. One of my traps had claimed a fox.

I veered left, snatched Fran by the arm, and dragged her down a narrow path that had been hollowed out through the undergrowth.

“They’re close,” she panted, glancing behind her.

I jumped over a fallen tree and almost fell, only for Fran to scoop me up. The foxes crashed after us, baying like the animals they were. If they caught us, we’d both be on the menu. “When I say jump, jump.”

“Jump where?”

The burrow opened up ahead and a panoramic view of Asgard’s tree-covered hills yawned wide.

“Jump!”

The cliff’s edge abruptly ended. I jumped, took a deep breath, and plummeted. My insides pushed upward. Air rushed by me. In the second, water slammed into me, surged up my nose, and pushed down my throat. Panic clutched at my thoughts and clawed at my instincts. My knee struck something hard. I twisted away while the water dragged me across the bottom of the river basin. I couldn’t see Fran, couldn’t see anything beyond bubbles and darkness. I’d never asked her if she could swim.

I kicked off the bottom and broke through the surface with a spluttering gasp, then bobbed under and up again. The current had a hold of me and the next waterfall was a hundred-foot killer. My heart galloped hard.

Get out! Shit.

Water roared and pulled and pushed.

“Grab on!” Fran was sprawled across a boulder, reaching out with a branch.

I snatched at the spindly twigs, but they snapped. The roar grew louder, devouring Fran’s shouts until all I could hear was my own thudding heart. Something snagged my fatigues—a half submerged branch. I clawed at it and dragged myself through the water, to the river’s edge. I crawled up the beach and collapsed onto my back, listening to my heart thump so damn hard it might burst.

Fran was waiting on the pebble-strewn beach, her hand on her hip, and her hair plastered to her forehead, dripping water into her eyes. “What the fuck was that?”

This was not how I’d imagined my day going. Finally, I could see the sky: red at the edges, black above. Endless black. It was good to see it again, even if I couldn’t reach it.

“That was me—” I coughed. “Rescuing you.”

“Rescuing me? You nearly killed me.”

I blinked at her upside down face. She was breathing hard and fast. Her green eyes practically glowed in the dull light. Fuck, she was the best thing I’d seen in too long.

I smiled. “Welcome to Asgard.”

“I saw the same tattoo on one of those … people.”

I knew why she’d paused. People was the wrong word for those animals.

“Foxes. They’re called foxes.” She’d seen the nine-tailed fox tattoo on my back many times before, but now she knew its significance. Keeping my back to her, I squeezed water from the upper half of my fatigues. “And I used to be one of them.”

I let that sink in for a while.

We’d moved deeper into the trees, away from the river, where the foxes would be searching for us. A campfire would be a beacon for everything that wanted to kill and eat us, so we stripped and squeezed water from our clothes as best as we could. The nights weren’t cold. Besides, there was a fuckload of other ways to die other than from exposure.

A glance over my shoulder revealed Fran shivering from her adrenalin comedown as she tried to step back into her wet fatigues. Her left thigh sported an angry bruise, but otherwise, she appeared unharmed. She shrugged on the fatigues, zipped them up, and ruffled her wet hair. Her wide, bright eyes met mine and narrowed as if she saw something she didn’t like.

She wrapped her arms around her body. “Did you—d-did you eat…?”

I hesitated, but only because of the fact that it pissed me off that she would even ask.

“No. Things have changed.” I tugged my wet clothes back on, my cold fingers aching. “I allied myself with the foxes the first time around. After a few cycles of living like an animal, it’s easier to become one.”

I’d never gone that far, though given enough time, like many of the forgotten prisoners here, I might have.

She looked up into the suffocating canopy of tree branches. “I can’t see the sky. Which way are the plains?”

I’d clung on to the dagger during the fall and rolled the hilt in my hand, contemplating whether to give it back to her or keep it for myself. The blade was crude and straight, designed for thrusting, not slashing. A dagger in Asgard could mean the difference between survival and death. I tucked it inside my fatigues. I’d be keeping it.

“Doesn’t matter. We need to get off the ground before dark.” I walked ahead, fairly certain I knew where the nearest hideout was. Before long, we wouldn’t be able to see much beyond reaching distance, and then we’d be really screwed.

“If we can get to the plains beyond the forest, we can escape. I have Starscream.”

I strode through the brush and wove around vast tree trunks, wondering how the fuck she’d managed to get Starscream into Asgard’s airspace. Nothing got into the airspace above the prison, other than prisoner transport ships. I’d ask her, but not yet.

Still, the thought of Starscream being so close kicked my withered heart up a beat. Freedom. How convenient that Fran just happened to get into Asgard, with a dagger, and just so happened to have my tugboat waiting nearby. She was good, but not that good. If this wasn’t a setup, then I wasn’t a selfish bastard.

“Here.” I clutched the nearest low-level tree branch and hauled myself off the forest floor, climbing higher.

Fran followed, nimble and quick. We reached a rickety platform around seventy feet above the forest floor. I gave it an experimental shove. It creaked but appeared strong enough to hold us. These hides were all over the place in Asgard, if you knew where to look.

“Stay here.” I climbed a few branches higher.

“Where are you going?”

Halting, I looked down. What little light there was pricked her dark eyes. A smile ghosted across her lips, but her brave act couldn’t hide the fear in those eyes. She should be afraid.

“Just stay right there.”

I climbed as high as I dared—high enough to taste the poisonous air leeching through the canopy—and snagged a few of the fist-sized nuts that only grew amongst the highest branches.

Returning to the platform, I eased my weight carefully next to Fran, cracked a few nuts with my teeth, and handed them over. In the gathering dark, I couldn’t read much of her face, but I felt her shivers vibrating through the platform surely enough.

“Hollow out the inside,” I said quietly. “They taste like shit, but it’ll stop the hunger pangs.”

I ate my own and listened to the sighing darkness around us.

“We could be moving—”

“Not if you want to stay alive.”

“I’ve survived here for two days.”

More than most. “You’d have heard them then—the growls?”

“I heard them. Never saw anything.”

In the dark, she couldn’t see my smile. “You don’t, until it’s too late.”

A soft quiet settled over us.

“They’re camouflaged. Look just like tree bark. In the low light, you could be standing right next to one and not know it.”

Her shivers started up again, and she whispered, “This place is fucked up.”

I leaned back against the trunk and listened to the soft sounds of her chewing. Of all the people in all the nine systems, I hadn’t expected I’d be stuck up a tree with Francisca.

“Thanks,” I whispered.

She hesitated for a few beats. “Starscream is a bitch to pilot on my own, and no other bastard will fly with me.”

I laughed softly, the first laugh in— “How long have I been here?”

“A cycle.”

It felt longer—much longer. Dropping my head back, I closed my eyes and listened to the groaning trees, but didn’t hear any growlers—yet. I’d left out the part where they could climb trees. Fran didn’t need to know that. If one climbed our tree, we’d fucking know about it soon enough.

“You take first watch,” I said.

“Is it safe to sleep up here?”

“Nowhere’s safe in Asgard.”

She uttered a string of curses, and I smiled. She might be fleet, that hadn’t changed, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t good to see her.

Her whispered words against my cheek brought me back around from the same dream I’d been suffering through almost every night since Mimir. I blinked into the dark, briefly disorientated, and saw the brittle hatred in the synth’s eyes just as she pulled the trigger.

“Cale …” Fran. Fran was here. Not Ha—the synth.

Just a dream. I touched the scar on my forehead, the way I always did.

Fran’s fingers dug into my arm. “Cale.”

She was leaning into me, trembling so fucking hard the platform creaked. The night was still dark, so dark I struggled to see Fran’s face, which was nearly pressed against mine, but I felt her fluttering breath on my cheek. Her hand crawled up my chest before twisting into a fist.

“It’s been d-days,” she stuttered through clenched teeth. “I need …”

Her addiction had caught up with her and in the worst place possible. I wasn’t sure what she expected me to do and was about to remark on her poor timing, when rustling sounds drifted up from the forest floor.

Fran pulled on my overalls, curling her body against mine. The shakes had hold of her and nothing I could say or do would help. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her in tightly, hoping to stifle some of her tremors. The platform shifted and a fragment broke away, tumbling to the ground. I held my breath, waiting.

A primal growl—the kind of bowel-loosening basal sound that haunted nightmares—rolled through the quiet. I squeezed my eyes closed and wished I’d stayed in my own fucking synth-nightmare. Fran’s shakes rattled through me, the platform, and the branches. The growler couldn’t fail to hear us.

I knew Starscream was close by. If—when the growler attacked, I could make a run for it while it was busy with Fran. While lost in withdrawal, she was a fucking liability anyway. What had she been thinking coming after me?

A violent tremor tore through her. She dug her nails into my arm and let out a wretched groan. I smothered her mouth with my hand, but it was too late. Our tree jolted. Twigs and leaves rained over us. It was coming.

I pried Fran’s grip off me and pushed her down against the lattice of branches. “Don’t fucking move.”

She may have mumbled my name, but I was already off the platform, crawling along one of the sturdier branches. This was insane. I could barely see a few feet into the black and gray soup of shadows. At least I didn’t have to worry about being quiet anymore.

I scooted out onto a tree limb and freed Fran’s dagger from my fatigues. “Hey, you lumbering piece of Asgard shit.”

Insane, insane, fuckin’ insane. I was about to die, and for what? To save a fleet junkie?

The forest stilled as though the night were holding its breath. Skeletal branches reached toward me. Fran had better be fucking grateful. I wanted a ship named after me, at the very least.

Yellow eyes loomed out of the dark. Shadows collected along its massive, elongated snout. The beast peeled its lips back, and what little light there was licked across rows of yellow teeth designed to saw into flesh. It sprang forward, claws protracted, and I dropped over the side of the branch, clinging to it by the tips of my fingers. The growler crashed into the foliage behind my head and tumbled to the forest floor, letting out the kind of grunts and snarls I assumed meant I’d pissed it off.

I half climbed down, half fell through the branches, landed in a crouch, and immediately sprang into a run. A maze of trees blurred by, all virtually identical in the dark. I had no fucking idea what direction I was running in. All I knew was that I was smaller than a growler, so if I could make myself out to be more trouble than I was worth, it’d back off. It thundered after me, a single stride easily three of mine. Shoulder down, I plunged through a snarl of bushes, stumbled, and fell hard onto my side. The growler punched through after me and would have had its teeth in my throat had I not thrust the dagger into its soft underbelly and kicked it over my head, using its own momentum and my pure fucking adrenalin to launch it.

I twisted onto my back and scrambled to my knees. The growler was lying on its side, chewing into its own tangle of guts, which were strewn from the ugly tear in its abdomen. I scuttled backward, dissolving into the undergrowth, and carefully retreated leaving the beast to die.

When I climbed back up to the hide at dawn, I found Fran sitting with her back against the tree, arm draped over her drawn-up knee. Her fingers were shaking, so she was still in the grips of withdrawal. She cut me the sort of raised-eyebrow look that asked: Where the fuck have you been all night?

With the dregs of adrenalin all but gone, I didn’t have the energy to explain. Instead I slumped beside her on the platform and puffed out a sigh.

“Couldn’t find the ship without me, huh?”

I dropped my head back and closed my eyes. She thought I’d left her to fly my selfish ass out of Asgard, though it wasn’t as if I hadn’t thought about it.

I smiled to myself. “Went for a piss.”

She snorted. “Give me that dagger. I need to cut your prisoner chip out of you.”

I handed her the dagger, hilt first. She saw the blood and gore coating it and my hand but didn’t comment.

“It’s between your shoulder blades, right?”

I grunted, too fucking exhausted for words.

“Turn around and drop the top of your overalls,” she ordered.

I shuffled about and shrugged out of the filthy, stinking overalls, showing her my back. Her cool fingers poked around between my shoulder blades, dancing over the small bump where the implant sat. All prisoners were implanted. Fuck knew why. It wasn’t like the few jailors who dwelled safely out of reach in their orbit station ever considered dragging our assess out again. The foxes cut theirs out with makeshift tools, but I didn’t have a blade, and on my own, I couldn’t reach it.

As the tip of her dagger pressed into my back, I braced my hand against the trunk, bowed my head, and absorbed the biting pain. I’d had worse; the old scars on my back were proof of that. Fran splayed her cool right hand over my skin, steadying herself. She swore and adjusted her angle, sparking a few painful twinges.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Fran? There aren’t any dealers on Asgard.”

She cut around the implant with trembling fingers.

“I had you located and planned on getting in and out in a day.” She obviously hadn’t planned on the foxes capturing her. “I need a hit, Cale, before I … before it happens again.”

The blade dug under the implant. I hissed in through my teeth. “Is the ship far?”

“No, but I don’t know how long the clearance codes will hide her ID. We need to get moving.”

She dug an elbow into my back and yanked the implant free.

“How’d you get out last time?” she asked, showing me the bloody implant.

Working my overalls back on, I ignored the burn where the filthy fabric touched the raw wound and took the implant from her.

“I got a message to be in a certain location. Mistakes happened, the cameras by the gate weren’t working, a prisoner manifesto got misplaced.”

“Luck?”

“Fuck no.” I tossed the implant over the side of the platform. “I don’t know who organized the trail of fuckups that I took advantage of, but I can guess.”

She blinked, her eyes red-rimmed. “The Fenrir Nine?”

I shrugged a shoulder, but the answer was yes.

“Why though? You were just a fleet throwaway.”

I smiled and didn’t answer her. Shortly after I’d escaped Asgard, the Nine had met with me. Shrouded in their mysterious shit, I’d initially laughed them off as crazies, until they’d mentioned Chen Hung. They’d made it clear that they wanted Hung on his fucking knees. As to why they’d picked me over any number of equally slippery smugglers, who knew? Maybe it was my connection to Haley Hung. They’d never told me, and I didn’t want to know anything beyond where the next pickup was. Keep it simple. Get away clean.

“Let’s go find Starscream.”

Chapter Four: #1001

The lab door hissed open and a well-dressed, middle-aged man strode in. I kept my gaze trained ahead, softening my focus to the middle distance so I didn’t see much of anything. James stood to my right, his fingers lightly tapping the diagnostic screens. I wasn’t to look at him.

‘Don’t react at all. It’s important they think you’re as malleable as the other thousand.’

I stood naked and raw, an intricate map of man-made components—touch-sensitive polymer skin and a synthetic telepathy interface—designed to impersonate a human woman while assessing and reacting to the world around me. Inside, my power core thrummed a constant back and forth pulse of energy. I was a human girl’s mnemonic remains in a manufactured body, pretending to be a machine. No wonder faults were dancing in my peripheral vision.

James glanced up.

“Good morning, Doctor Scheffler,” he said breezily.

He banished my errors with a tap on his pad. He had said he’d try to catch the spikes before the assessment team could notice anything untoward. If he didn’t succeed and they deemed me rogue, I’d be shut down. But it wouldn’t come to that. I’d tasted life, and I wanted more. This doctor wouldn’t stop me. I’d killed the last one who’d tried.

“Report,” Scheffler said, his lips permanently skewed sideways, giving the impression of a constant grimace.

“All systems optimal,” I replied without looking directly at him.

He held a hand out toward James, his glare never leaving my face. He was standing too close. The only people I let get this close to me were those I intended to kill. <fault>

James caught the error, lightning quick, before handing his touchpad to the doctor.

“I’ve realigned her various protocols. This unit’s programming was a mess. Really, it’s no wonder she lashed out. Synthetics aren’t designed to have their failsafes disabled and their fundamental protocols bypassed.” James continued as the doctor scanned the touchpad. “But she’s back to factory settings.”

Factory settings, like cold hardware. Heat bloomed in my chest.

“This is exceptional work, James.”

“Thank you, doctor. I’ve enjoyed every moment. I never thought I’d—”

“However, the board has reached a decision. Number one thousand and one cannot continue to exist. If information leaked that we have an extra synthetic unit—that we’ve made even just one extra synthetic—all of Chitec would come into question.”

“But she’s—”

“The decision is final.” Scheffler handed back the touchpad.

“It er …” James dragged a hand across his mouth. “It seems like a terrible waste. What does Mister Hung think about this?”

A fracture had fragmented his voice, creating a small hitch. Scheffler would have missed it, but I hadn’t. My acute sensors flagged how James’s heart drummed faster.

“Mister Hung was outvoted.” Scheffler took a long hard look at me.

I defocused and gazed back, unseeing.

“I can assure you she’s fully operational and worth a great deal of credit.…” James trailed off and swallowed hard. “We—Chitec could learn a lot from her.”

“We know everything we need to about the synthetic units.” Scheffler lifted his chin and took a single step back. “Shut her down.”

James had told me this might be a possibility, but it didn’t make it any easier.

“I’d like to run some—”

“Shut her down now, Doctor Lloyd.” Scheffler finally took his eyes off me and turned toward James. “I will need to confirm it’s been done. Please proceed.”

With Scheffler turned away, I chanced a look at James. His eyes met mine, pleading with me. Doctor Scheffler would think James was lamenting the loss of his hard work, but the beseeching gaze wasn’t for his work; it was for Scheffler’s life. We both knew I’d kill to survive.

I focused on Scheffler. In a fraction of a second, I mentally pulled his bio from the datacloud, retrieved and scanned Scheffler’s medical records, noted his pulse rate and temperature, and flicked through his employment history. He had a wife of two years. He was in good health—no ailments and no weaknesses. If I wanted to kill him, the most efficient way would be to strangle him, or more precisely, to crush his trachea. James’s innocent eyes begged me not to. My only other option was to trust James—a Chitec technician. Trust that he’d shut me down in such a way that he could reboot me without losing the parts that made me … me.

Trust Chitec. That wouldn’t happen.

I moved and, in the next breath, hooked my arm around Scheffler’s neck, pulling his head backward into my shoulder. I bowed him backwards, drawing him down. Diagnostics spilled into my vision: errors, warnings, and status reports. I dismissed it all and focused on the man clawing at my arm in a weak bid to free himself. They’d made me stronger. Made me faster. Made me deadly.

“Don’t! You can’t hurt him. Stop this. Stop!” James’s shrill voice buzzed from a few steps behind me. “Just … stop. You don’t need to do this. You don’t need to kill. One Thousand And One, please. He’s just doing a job, like we all are. Oh, by the nine. You’ll ruin everything. Please …” A sob broke free from him. “Haley, please …”

I closed my eyes and listened to Scheffler’s thudding heart. He heaved and kicked, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t—escape me. There’s an intimacy in death. I held him close and listened to what could be his final breaths and the final fluttering of his heart. If I were Haley, I would have surely cared more than I did. Killing a man should be difficult, but I found it simple and uncomplicated—a series of commands to execute, that when perfectly aligned, created the desired outcome. Killing was neat and easy—order in chaos.

“I will shut you down.”

I opened my eyes and slid my gaze to James. His fingers hovered over the touchpad. I put out a datacloud request for synthetic shut down protocols, but my request bounced back empty. Nothing of the ever-after program’s inner workings and the 1000 had ever been uploaded to the datacloud and never would be. Was it feasible that James could shut me down with a swipe of his fingers?

The young technician lost his youth in his determined glare. His heart raced, the vein pulsing in his neck. He’d known Haley—they’d been friends—but I remembered nothing of him, though that didn’t mean their friendship hadn’t happened. I only recalled fragments of Haley’s life. Would he shut me down and erase his friend’s memory over this man’s life?

“Don’t kill him,” James whispered. His poised hand trembled.

Scheffler fell limp in my arms. I dropped him and stepped back. “I executed a choke hold. He’ll recover in under a minute.”

James’s mouth fell open. “What? A minute?”

“Yes, approximately.”

“But …” James immediately discarded the touchpad and started pacing. “What am I going to do? I can’t just—We—You—”

“Killing him is the most viable option.”

He stopped and shook his head. “No. No! Killing is never a viable option. This shouldn’t even be—”

“Forty-four seconds.”

James paled and chewed on his bottom lip. “Besides killing him, what other options are there?”

“Tie him to the examination table.”

“Okay …” James took a step forward and then backed away. “I can’t. I just—I can’t.”

I stripped Scheffler of his lab coat and, with James’s help, strapped him down to the table. Tearing a strip of fabric from the lab coat, I balled it up, jammed it in Scheffler’s mouth and tied it off while he roused. He’d be disorientated for a while yet. I shrugged on his torn lab coat to cover my nakedness.

“We need to find an exit before he is discovered.”

“An exit? Yes, an exit. Right. Okay … well, you’re not going to fool anyone with that coat on. The best I can do is walk you through the repairs unit and hope that anyone who sees us believes you’re a synthetic in for a system check.” He paced again. “Yes, yes, that could work. Give me the coat.”

I handed it over, naked once more. Cool air skimmed across my skin. I shut out the surplus sensations, already balancing enough sensory input.

“We’ll need it if we get outside.” James spoke aloud to himself and then turned hard to me. “But in here you must behave like a synthetic unit and nothing else. No emotional outbursts. Are you in control?”

“Yes.”

He pulled in air through his nose and sighed deeply. “We can do this. We have to do this. We can do this?”

“Yes. I’ve scanned the floor plan. If we leave the repairs unit by way of the maintenance bay, we can slip outside, assuming you have security clearance to get through the outer door?”

“Yes, unless he …” James avoided looking at the doctor. “Unless he’s discovered and they remote lock it.”

A locked door wouldn’t stop me. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Five: Caleb

I reached up and skimmed my fingertips along the underside of Starscream’s cool hull. She bore a few scars, some heat fatigue cracks, and more than a few dents where phase bullets had bounced off her heat shielding. I knew the source of every wound and gently ran my fingers over those I could reach. She’d taken some knocks in her time. I could relate.

A crazy smile tugged at my lips. I thought I’d never see her again.

I followed Fran up the cargo ramp and into the hold. The air inside the ship smelled like hot metal and mechanical grease; it smelled like home.

A few branded crates occupied one side. I recognized the sweeping ‘C’ logo as belonging to one of the most influential families in the nine systems.

“Paying cargo?”

“How do you think I got the clearance codes for Asgard’s airspace?” Fran answered.

The hold doors clunked closed, sealing Asgard out. A shaky sigh escaped before I could swallow it. Relief lifted off my back—off my soul—and a spiked knot tightened my throat. I turned my face away from Fran, pretending to admire the cargo. I managed a few steps before reaching out to steady myself against one of the crates.

Fran’s keen gaze caught mine. I’d already thanked her and didn’t need to say the words again. My gratitude must have been plain as day on my face, because she nodded once and headed through the personnel door, calling back, “We’re flight-ready when you are, Captain.”

Her first stop would be to get a hit of phencyl. Once we were black-bound, my first stop would be at any bottle of whiskey I could find.

Alone in the hold, I leaned back on the crate and listened to Starscream: the dry, metallic smell of the ship, the echo of the hold, and the occasional rattle of the air recycling system. She was my life, my freedom. The knot in my throat tightened some more, and I let it. My vision may have even blurred.

I had believed I’d die in Asgard. I’d gotten out once, with help. Since then, due to my association with alleged fleet spies, the Nine had made it clear that they didn’t want me on their payroll. People like me didn’t get second chances. Yet here I was, out a second time, thanks to Fran.

The engines rumbled to life, shuddering through the ship and through me. Soon, I’d be back-in-black, where I belonged.

Fran was waiting for me when I arrived on the bridge. A touch of color warmed her cheeks while the phencyl high brightened her eyes. She hadn’t even bothered hiding the jet-injector blister on the inside of her arm. Fuck, I envied her quick fix. If only my problems could be so easily dealt with.

I gripped the back of my flight chair. Through the obs window, the Asgard forest painted the view all the way to the horizon, where the trees blurred into black. The prison was vast; Fran never would have found me without my prisoner ID code, and those records weren’t public knowledge.

Easy enough to find my number if she’s fleet.

At the moment, I didn’t care who she was. She’d gotten me out of that hell before I’d lost what little humanity I had left.

“Ready?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

She gripped the flight controls, flicked the systems to manual, and lifted my baby off Asgard’s earth. The background din of Starscream’s engines tickled the hairs on my arms.

Fuck, I missed this.

At a few thousand feet, I dropped into my chair and buckled up. “Switch controls to me.”

If Fran had noticed the fractures in my voice, she didn’t comment on it.

I wrapped my filthy, trembling fingers around the controls. Starscream responded as though we’d never been apart. These controls, they meant freedom. I lifted her high above the planet’s surface, checking scans for any patrols, then switched systems to orbit and boosted her away from the prison rock, leaving after-burn residue in our wake. By the time we were back-in-black, I almost felt as though I’d never left. Almost.

“That feels good,” I muttered softly, and then dialed in the coordinates for the nearest jump gate. I wasn’t expecting trouble—inmates didn’t check out of Asgard by way of tugship—and Starscream had clearance, but I didn’t want to hang around any longer than necessary. In fact, I’d happily jump across the nine systems to get as far away from Asgard as possible.

I leaned back in the flight chair with a sigh. “I’m really out of there.”

Fran smiled as she worked over the flight controls, checking that all systems were good. “You are.”

She concentrated on the controls to avoid looking at me. I needed to ask her how, and why, she’d done this. I needed to speak to her about a lot of things, but not yet. It could wait. First, I wanted a shave and to wash the stink of Asgard and the foxes off me, and then I wanted some food and whiskey. Not necessarily in that order.

“Go,” she said, finally looking me over. “I’ve got this. Go reacquaint yourself with Starscream. You won’t find anything wrong. I serviced her myself.”

Her smile, the delight in her eyes, as well as the relief—I wanted badly to believe all of it, but I couldn’t help thinking I’d been plucked from one hell, only to find myself in some variation of another, one where fleet was sitting right beside me, watching my every move.

“We need to talk.”

“Yes, we do.” She nodded, her smile softening. “When you don’t smell like the dead, and after you shave that face-fur off. Go on. Take some R&R. You’ve earned it.”

She was being nice. Maybe that was okay, or maybe she was fleet and she was trying to sweeten me up. I didn’t know, and—as I pushed up from my chair and left the bridge, running my hands along the catwalk’s rails—I couldn’t care less. I was back-in-black, right where I belonged, and for an hour or two, I’d enjoy it. After that, I was making plans and getting answers, whether Fran wanted to hand them over or not.

Chapter Six: #1001

James walked me through Chitec’s maintenance sector, bidding his colleagues a good day, sharing some easy smiles, and sprinkling in some small talk. He lied well enough that his colleagues didn’t notice the strain on his face or in his voice, or if they did, they didn’t care. I walked beside him, head up, gaze forward, resisting the slippery urge to break into a run as soon as I saw the exit signs. Could it be so easy to escape? Just walk right out?

James stopped by the exit. His worry-pinched eyes flicked to me. Behind us, the lab techs milled about the hall, passing between laboratories and oblivious to the fact that one of their own was about to steal a billion-credit piece of Chitec hardware. He swiped his wrist comms over the lock. It gave a shallow bleep and blinked red.

“Oh.” James bit his lip and tried again. “This is bad.”

I tilted my head and watched the technicians behind us, looking for any signs of alarm. “The doctor has been discovered?”

He swiped again at the lock, which clearly wasn’t going to change its mind and let us through.

“Yes. They’ve restricted my access. They must want to keep it quiet, since they haven’t set off the alarms.” He swallowed hard with a click and looked at me for answers. “They’ll be looking for us.”

I wrapped my fingers around the door handle, pushed pressure from my shoulder, down my arm, and into my grip, and twisted. The casing popped with a metallic clang and the handle crumpled. I didn’t stop to see whether the noise had drawn any attention, giving the door a shove and fracturing the locks, and pushed out into the cool, artificial sunlight of the Janus Orbit Station. The sparkling city curled upward into the infinite orbit station curve, turning into the sky as it rolled back overhead. Elevator lanes crisscrossed the space like a vast spiderweb.

“Go, go!” James shoved me forward, out onto what looked like a staff parking lot.

“Stop them!”

I snatched at James and shoved him ahead of me. “Stay in front. If they fire, they’ll hit me, not you.”

He stumbled into a run, white-lab coat flapping. I internally pulled up a street map of Janus and followed him while searching for someplace to get lost in the crowd.

“The retail district.”

“That’s ten blocks away!”

He veered right—the wrong way. I grabbed his shoulder and swung him ahead of me, shoving him forward between two stationary delivery trucks. The building’s alarm wailed and with it came the sound of distant Janus security sirens. Janus was the surveillance capital of the nine systems, with old Earth a close second. James’s face and bioscan would already be circulating the network. My face looked like every other female synthetic, and there were more than a few on Janus. Six in fact, so the datacloud informed me.

“You need a disguise,” I said.

He slumped against a truck’s side panel. “This—This is … I can’t do this.”

He handed me the lab coat, shaking his head the whole time.

“You just did.” I shrugged the coat on.

Doubt clouded his eyes. He was likely wondering whether it was too late to walk into the open with his hands up. It was.

I moved to the front of the trucks and scanned the street. Blue flashing lights strafed the dazzling glass buildings. I caught sight of a nimble autobike and pulled its maintenance instructions from the cloud.

“Come.” I grabbed James by the arm and pulled him out of our hiding place. “Get on.”

While I threw my leg over the bike, he blinked and winced away. “I er … I can’t.…”

“Then stay.”

I cracked open the ignition casing, leaned over, stripped the relevant wires with my teeth, and rewired the bike.

“Swipe your comms here.” I tapped the handlebars where the comms receptor awaited instructions.

“Desist immediately!” Janus Security announced by loudspeaker.

There wasn’t time to look back. James ran his comm over the starter, and the electric bike hummed to life. He climbed on and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“You know how to ride one of these?” he asked, his breath hot against my neck.

“I downloaded the manual.”

I kicked the bike off its stand and applied power, surging us out of the parking bay. We bumped over the median strip and threaded into traffic. Sirens wailed behind us, and James’s grip clamped tighter around my waist. I smiled at it all.

‘Who’d have guessed that Chen Hung’s daughter has a weakness for speed?’

‘I blame you, Caleb-Joe, for broadening my horizons.’

‘I can’t broaden what isn’t already there.’

My smile cracked and broke apart, the fragments turning into a snarl.

I killed him.

I hunkered down behind the small windscreen. “Hold on!”

Cranking up the power, I snaked the bike through traffic, building up speed with every breath. Autocars buzzed by. The sirens faded beneath the rush of the wind. Janus’s jagged glass buildings blurred into streams of movement. My focus narrowed and sharpened until all I could see was the route to freedom. The wind rushed over my synthetic skin, not unlike water. The thrill lifted me higher and stripped me down to my most basic functions: To run. To survive. To make them suffer. I’d do anything to live. Chitec wouldn’t have me.

I am #1001 and I will survive, at any cost.

We bought some clothes, including a hoodie to hide James’s face from the bioscanners, took the bike on another run to shake Janus security, and pulled into a district that J-Security avoided if they wanted to keep their autocars intact. Tech scavengers infested the warehouse district, stripping anything of value and smuggling it off the Orbit Station, or so the district’s datacloud entry informed me.

“This part of Janus gives me the creeps,” James said, closing the motel door behind us. “You know they sell augmented body parts here too?”

He strode into the room and started checking the drawers and cupboards; for what, I wasn’t sure.

“It’s not just tech they trade,” he said.

I stood dead center and scanned the room from floor to ceiling for any signs of surveillance equipment.

“They’ve been known to attack people, operate on them, and then toss them back on the streets without their liver, or a lung, or an eye.”

The datafiles contained no proof of any such incidents, so I suspected James might have been the victim of urban legends.

“At least they don’t sell whole bodies for a billion credits each,” I said.

James paused his search through an empty cupboard and turned to me with an apologetic wisp of a smile.

“You’re right, of course. I look at you, hear you talk, and I feel …” He closed a hand over his heart and sent his gaze about the room, either searching for the word or avoiding my stare. “Guilty, I think. Like I should have done more.”

“You did enough.”

Guilt? Was that the wriggling unease I felt whenever I recalled how I’d killed Caleb Shepperd? I blocked out those thoughts, knowing they’d soon sneak their way back in, and checked the bathroom. Filthy, but no hidden tech. Given that the motel charged by the hour, I assumed their clientele preferred not to be recorded.

“When I secured a position at Chitec, it was the best day of my life.” His voice carried an airy touch of pride. “And then, when I was promoted to the life-ever-after program, it was like Christmas, you know?”

“No.” I joined James in the main room. “I don’t know what Christmas is like. As far as I can ascertain, it’s an antiquated lie told to keep young children under control, much like any religious faith attempts to control adults.”

James opened his mouth to speak, paused, and then closed it again. “If I try to explain it—Never mind. You’re probably right. What I mean is, I was proud to be a part of Chitec. It was a dream come true.”

“I don’t dream.”

Stars are wishes, and wishes are dreams. I looked away as the memory asserted itself. Haley was still inside, in my datafile, my memory.

“Okay.” He laughed softly. “Sometimes you’re entirely too human and other times you’re too cold to be anything other than synthetic.”

“All one thousand of the synthetics are machines, Doctor Lloyd.”

He frowned. My words weren’t what he’d wanted to hear.

“How much do you know about the life-ever-after project?” I asked.

He shrugged a shoulder and came to sit on the edge of the only bed. His hand trembled as he ran it through his short, chestnut-colored hair.

“I er—everything, I suppose. I mean my employment commenced after the synthetic units were already sold. I saw the glitzy auctions and the celebrations. Like any kid, I grew up worshipping Chitec. My parents talked about how Chitec saved us from the Blackout. We owe them everything. The nine systems wouldn’t exist without Chitec. I was honored to be a part of that.”

He was searching for something on my face, acknowledgement perhaps. I couldn’t offer him agreement. His datafile told me he rarely left Janus. He couldn’t know what it was like in the nine. Life on Janus was a perfect bandage over an ugly, festering wound of riots and exploitation. But the news channels and infomercials didn’t broadcast the reality.

He cleared his throat and continued. “I’m a maintenance technician, so if a synthetic develops a fault, I’m on the team that fixes them up like new, like I did with you. It’s a privilege, really.”

He smiled. His smiles were fluttering things, there and gone again, like his restless gestures and darting glances. His constant movements stood in stark contrast to my stillness.

“The life-ever-after program is a lie.”

He sighed and gripped his thighs, perhaps hoping to hide how his hands were shaking.

“I kind of thought you might say something like that. I’d suspected as much. I mean, how could I not? We check them over and send them out again. You get a feel for tech after you’ve worked on its insides. After a few weeks, and after my first couple of units, I suspected something wasn’t right. But it’s Chitec.”

Another shrug.

“They deposit credits into my account every week. I buy their comms units, use their tech every day, and eat food brought here through their Chitec-controlled gates. They’re everywhere. I didn’t want to make waves, not when I er …”

His heartbeat skipped.

“Anyway, who do you complain to when Chitec controls the air we breathe? They wouldn’t care about what I said anyway; I’m just a technician. I need my job. I can’t afford to …” He laughed softly. “It doesn’t matter now.”

He’d been about to reveal something but had stopped himself. I took another look at his datafile and found nothing suspicious. Perhaps his fugitive state was making him anxious.

“Do you know the truth about Chitec?” I asked.

“I figure Chitec just wants the money. People will pay anything to live forever.”

“The One Thousand are killers,” I said.

He recoiled, disbelief twisting his expression.

“They’re spread across the nine systems, placed strategically among the elite. You’re helping maintain an elite weapon.”

“A weapon? That’s—No, that’s not possible. Why?”

Why was what I had yet to determine. “Haley discovered the truth. Her father killed her to protect it.”

“What?” James stood abruptly. “Say that again.”

“Haley discovered the truth—”

“Her father killed her?”

His eyes shined wide, the burden of the truth pulling on his expression, tearing away his bright smile. He covered his mouth with a hand.

“Oh, that’s why he brought you back. That’s why he made one more.” He backed away from me, shoulders bowed. “I wondered. I mean Chitec took a big risk by creating one more. If the public should discover what he’s done, everything Chitec has done will be called into question. But he killed Haley? And they’re weapons?”

He swallowed. “Coming from anyone else, I’d laugh. But from you? I … I don’t know what to say.”

“I have to find him.” My fingers twitched. <fault>Failsafe disabled.<fault>

“I can understand why. If he killed Haley …” He paced the room, his strides short and his head down, deep in thought. “But it won’t solve anything, and it’s not that easy.”

I didn’t care what James thought was or wasn’t possible. I would find Chen Hung.

“James, did you reset my protocols?”

“Yes.”

“And my failsafe?”

“Yes, that too.” He waved a hand at me. “It would have been irresponsible of me not to.”

Then he paused his pacing and looked right at me. “Although, given your behavior in the lab, I’m not sure if the hard reset had any effect on you.”

Evidently not. “I need to see Chen Hung. I need answers.”

“One Thousand and One,” he said, more softly now. “You can’t just walk into his towers.”

I most certainly could.

“We have to get off Janus,” he insisted. “The longer we stay, the more likely it is we’ll be discovered.”

“We will leave Janus, but I need to see Chen Hung. I have to get answers. I have to know.”

“Know what exactly?”

I recalled precisely how warm Haley’s father’s hand had felt when he’d smothered her nose and mouth, and how his face had filled her vision. I remembered the cold, flat nothingness of his eyes.

“I need to know how he could kill his daughter.”

James rubbed his hands down his face. “Urgh, I didn’t save you so you could walk into Chitec towers and get yourself decommissioned.”

“Why did you save me?”

He smiled and approached me, then gathered my hands in his. His hands were warm and soft, and so very gentle—the hands of someone used to working with delicate equipment.

“Because it was the right thing to do.”

I could attribute his racing heart to stress, but not his evasive gaze. He’d looked me in the eye and had lied. Doctor James Lloyd may have been Haley’s friend, but he wasn’t mine.

I closed my hands around his. The structure of his expression changed. It was subtle to begin with, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth and a tiny narrowing of his eyes, but then he realized I wasn’t releasing him.

“One Thousand and One?” He tugged. “Okay. Hey, you want to let me go now?”

I dipped my chin and glared at him. “Why are you lying?”

“I-I’m not.”

I squeezed.

He curled in over his hands, knees buckling. “You’re hurting me.”

“Explain to me why you lied and I’ll stop.”

“I didn’t lie! Ow-ow-ow! You’re breaking my fingers.”

“It’s your thumbs you should be worried about.”

“Don’t! My work! I need my fingers!”

“Tell me.”

“It’s not a lie. I couldn’t let them destroy you.”

“Why?”

“Because … because you’re different.”

His diagnostics spiked, heart racing and temperature soaring. I couldn’t get a clear read on whether he was lying while I tortured him.

“That’s not all though, is it?”

“No! No … Let go. Let go and I’ll tell you.”

I let him go. He fell backward onto the bed, cradling his bruised hands against his chest. “It’s my sister.…”

Truth.

He lifted his gaze but struggled to meet my eyes. “People are dying while the rich get richer.” He sobbed. “My sister’s dying.”

A wry smile tightened my lips. “You intended to hand me over to Chen Hung in exchange for a synthetic?”

His gaze skipped away. “Not exactly. There aren’t any extra synthetics. At least, there aren’t meant to be.”

“You intended to upload your sister’s dataprint and overwrite my existing datafiles?” By his silence, I assumed I was correct. “You knew the process had been successful with me and saw me as a viable means of prolonging your sister’s life?”

He swallowed.

What he’d intended to do could have killed any sense I had of myself. It could have wiped the memories—old and new, good and bad—clean. “Did you even know Haley?”

“Yes.” He snapped his head up. “Yes. We went to college together. We were friends. That wasn’t a lie. And after what you told me—about her father and the synthetics—I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“If you overwrite my datafile, you’ll erase what remains of Haley Hung.” Errors sparked at the thought and a sharp pang of something I recognized as fear darted through me. “Her memories are more important than you or your sister, Doctor Lloyd. I can’t help you.”

He breathed in deeply and slowly exhaled, but it couldn’t lift the weight of responsibility from his shoulders.

“I know. I think I knew it from the start, but I hoped. I can’t afford the treatments she needs. And now this.” He rolled his eyes at the motel room. “I don’t even know if I can go back to her. I just …” He looked at me as though he were searching for answers. “I just wish things were different.”

“Stars are wishes and wishes are dreams, Doctor Lloyd.”

Hope lit up his face. “Haley does live in you.”

I stepped closer and held out a hand. “I’m grateful for your help, but with security looking for us, perhaps we should separate.”

“Separate? No, no. It’s not that simple now.” He laughed a dry, bitter laugh, but took my hand and let me lift him to his feet. “We both need to get off Janus, but we can’t go anywhere while security is on high alert. We’ll have to wait here until they recall their security squads. Can you monitor their locations from the cloud?”

“Yes.”

I’d thought his micro-movements had been due to his enthusiasm, and they were, but fear also plucked his nerves. This wasn’t how he’d imagined his plan would evolve. He was afraid for himself, for his sister, and possibly even for me.

<Rest protocol engaged. Reset initialized.

Three.

Two.

One.

Reset failed. Protocols breached. Failsafe disabled.>

‘You’d have walked away from the knowledge that could have stopped my father, stopped Chitec from using people’s dreams to build weapons? You’re a coward. A selfish coward.’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘… Do you think that somehow makes up for your mistakes?’

‘… There are people … who can help…. Nobody and nothing gives a damn about Caleb Shepperd.... The nine systems won’t miss me.’

“—Synth? Damn, if I had my diagnostics unit I could help you. Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

I blinked out of the memories and gazed into the shallow dull light leeching through the motel window. James hovered somewhere behind me on the bed. Did he worry for me, or for the hope of keeping his sister alive in me?

I’d waited until he’d fallen asleep before lying beside him to engage my rest protocols. The memories had come, creeping through my processes and coiling their tendrils around my programming. I couldn’t stop them, not really. Did people suffer these intrusions? Were memories always unbidden, or was that my curse?

“You were experiencing small convulsions. Is it Haley you’re remembering?” He settled his hand on my arm.

My attention drilled down to where his warmth soaked into my skin. I absorbed his touch and the data-sensation trickled through me, similar to the feeling of the shower I’d experienced on Starscream. This simple touch brought with it a myriad of information. I let the data spill through my systems, and instead of analyzing it or shoving it aside as nonsense, I welcomed it.

“Not Haley’s memories. My own.”

I reached up and rested my hand on his, but he yanked his hand back.

“I’m sorry. I …” The mattress dipped, and when he spoke next, his voice travelled about the room; he must have faced away. “It’s a human thing, to feel the need to comfort. It must seem unnecessary to you.”

He couldn’t see the downturn of my lips or feel the weight of regret in my chest. I could easily block it all, silence the faults and forget, but just like I’d opened myself to the pleasure of a simple touch, I didn’t want to lose the pain either. I’d killed people and felt nothing. I’d killed Shepperd and it hurt deep inside. No, not hurt. It felt as though something vital had been removed, some integral component that I needed so I could function.

“I was built and programmed to kill.” My simple words punctured the quiet. “Not feel.”

“Do you truly believe you feel? Is that what your data is telling you?”

“I’ve killed many, but I only regret the death of one.” I turned onto my back and looked up at James, who was seated on the edge of the bed, twisting to face me.

His eyes sparkled in the dark, and shadows thinned his face. “Doctor Grossman?”

Her death was necessary for my survival. But I … enjoyed it.

I couldn’t reply; protocols forbade it.

“I killed a man I’d been ordered to. A man I thought I hated.” I pushed into a sitting position and met James’s eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Dissecting my data serves little purpose.”

He studied me, roaming his gaze over my face, his own expression gathered in a slight frown. As a Chitec technician, he must have seen me as a collection of synthetic components, no more than a complicated, malfunctioning machine.

“We need to negotiate a way through the Janus port,” I said.

James didn’t appear to hear me. He lifted his hand and pressed his fingers to my cheek.

“The synthetics always run a little cool,” he said quietly. “Without the heat from their power core, their ability to rapid-process eventually fails.”

“Yes. On Mimir, my core temperature dropped. I would have shut down, but a smuggler saved me.”

“The Caleb Shepperd you mentioned?” His fingers continued brushing my cheek, but the feather-light touch was like a half whispered promise, hardly there at all.

“I killed him,” I said.

James’s gentle eyes narrowed by the smallest of measurements. He must have seen me as a problem to be solved, but his eyes didn’t peer into me like Scheffler’s had. His gaze saw me.

“But I’m alive.”

“Yes”—he trailed his warm fingers across my lips—“I believe you are.”

His explorative touch glanced up my cheek and teased into my hair.

“I wonder if Chen Hung is aware of your significance.” He slid his hand down my neck, releasing a scattering of pleasurable pulses. Before I realized I’d moved, I leaned into his touch, seeking it out.

James pulled back. The wonderment in his eyes slipped toward alarm. “Do you … do you feel the need for physical contact?”

I searched his eyes and his expression for a clue on how I should behave. I was programmed to respond to affection—all synthetics were. How else would they slip back into their sponsors’ lives? But I wanted him to touch me again, not to satisfy ingrained behaviors, but because his touch—any touch—brought with it such a swirl of wonderful data that it almost felt as if I could slip beneath it and let it wrap around me.

Taking his hand in mine, I rested it gently on my shoulder, my gaze never leaving his. “I enjoy the sensation, yes.”

He swallowed and dropped his gaze to where his hand was resting. “This is … this is highly irregular.”

I closed my eyes and deliberately recalled what it had felt like to be held by Shepperd. On Mimir, when we’d run from fleet, we’d hidden beneath a boardwalk, half submerged in the cold ocean. He’d gathered me against his chest and had closed his arms around me to keep me safe from the storm and to warm me through while the cold Mimir ocean had tried to drag me under. I was stronger than him, faster, more intelligent, and yet, curled in his arms, I’d felt safer than ever before. It wasn’t logical. Shepperd couldn’t have kept me safe, but as I’d listened to his heart and to his breathing, I could have stayed there.

I opened my eyes. “There is no reason for me to crave your touch. To be held … it’s an entirely human desire, but I do desire it. I want you to touch me.”

James scrambled off the bed in the space of three seconds.

“Okay, so … we need a way off Janus. I can’t leave yet, not without telling my sister.” He paced a little, then planted his hand on his hip, then tucked the same hand into his pants pocket, and then seemed to think of something to say before the words lodged in his throat. He barely looked at me when he asked, “Can you search the cloud for J-security’s whereabouts?”

I climbed off the bed. Clearly, I’d embarrassed him.

“Security has moved on to the residential quarter, but you can’t return to your sister,” I stated, my tone back to its candid resonance. “They’ll be watching your residence.”

“I have to.”

“You planned on getting me out before the incident with Scheffler. How?”

“I er … I was going to transfer Karen’s—my sister’s dataprint to you and then take an unregistered charter off Janus. I have some Chitec ops-lenses that can help me slip security. I wasn’t ready though, when you choked Scheffler. I planned to smuggle you out without being noticed and pass you off as just another synthetic unit, maybe Nine Seventeen; she was due in …” he trailed off.

“I can’t do that now. I’ll be lucky to get anywhere near a port. Damn. You know what they’ll think? They’ll think I’ve stolen Chitec property to sell. I’ll never work as a technician again. My entire career?” He threw his hands up. “Ruined.”

“Ops-lenses?” I asked, focusing on what was useful and ignoring his emotional responses.

“Cornea-infused lenses traced with data designed to replicate someone else’s datafile.”

He rattled off the tech as if such things were public knowledge, but the datacloud made no mention of such devices. Yet another Chitec secret. Chitec tech designed to fool Chitec-designed security systems. Who better to crack the most sophisticated surveillance systems in the nine but the company who produced those security systems? Tech, weapons, and synthetics—they’d created the perfect society, as well as the means to bring it all to a perfect halt.

“If we can get through the port, there may be someone who can help,” I said. “I know a fleet commander.”

I’d saved Commander Brendan Shepperd, Caleb’s brother. He was the type of man who’d feel obliged to help in return.

Everyone is an asset.

As long as he didn’t know I’d killed his brother.

“Fleet?” James smiled and shook his head. “Chitec owns fleet.”

“Not him.”

“It’s not that simple. Janus is—It’s wonderful until you find yourself on the wrong side of Chitec, then it’s a prison. The surveillance, the security—it’s like trying to navigate a minefield blindfolded.”

“Then we use their security against them. There are six synthetic units on Janus. Two are female. I can impersonate one. Physically, we’re identical.”

James nodded. “That will work. Not even the retinal scans can differentiate between synthetic units. If I can get back to my apartment, I can retrieve my own ops-lenses and fool the scans in much the same way.”

“J-Security will be watching your residence.”

“Mm … we should take a look. Without those lenses, I can’t leave Janus.”

He couldn’t, but I could, after I got my answers.

Chapter Seven: Caleb

I could have spent hours in the shower, fuck knew I’d needed it, but we were fast approaching the jump gate and I had other priorities. After a shave and a change of clothes, I felt halfway back to human. It would take time, and a bottle of whiskey, to scrub the stains of Asgard memories from my head. But before I could drown myself in booze (if I could find any), I had more immediate priorities to attend to.

I made a quick comms call, then searched through my cabin for anything out of place. The hidden compartment, which was once stocked with some mighty fine weapons, had been raided, but, after digging around one of the many secret panels, I found a pistol and tucked it against the small of my back, concealing it under my shirt. The sweep of the cabin complete, I did the same in the cargo hold until I’d rifled through as many of the countless hidden panels and hiding places as possible. I didn’t find any suspicious items or trackers, but then again, would fleet need to plant a tracker when they had one flying shotgun?

“Captain, we’re idling outside the gate’s pickup zone.”

I tapped my wrist comm. “Hold her steady. I’ll be right up.”

I warily eyed Fran’s cargo. The crates were stacked to chest height and vacuum wrapped in blue plastic. I couldn’t get a look inside without voiding our commission. I didn’t usually check cargo. We carried drugs, guns, and stolen goods. What’s to check? Fran had said she was running the cargo as part of the deal for Asgard’s airspace codes. Those codes were worth a lot more than what a few crates could hold. I picked at the wrapping, but it wouldn’t come free without me slicing it open. If I couldn’t get inside the crates, I’d have to get the answers from Fran.

Returning to the bridge, I found her prepping Starscream for the jump. The jump gate sparkled to the left of the obs window, its high-visibility lights alternating between green and red. The funnel shape tapered off at one end, where it swallowed and spat out ships as regularly as traffic moved through intersections back on old Earth. We were far enough out for the flow of traffic to ignore us.

“We’re all paid up. Shouldn’t be any issues getting through the gate,” Fran said, turning her seat to face me. Her eyes widened. “I forgot how ugly you are.”

She roamed her gaze all over me and then leaned back with an appreciative click of her tongue. “Is it possible you look even worse cleaned up?”

Her words belied the sideways tilt of her lips from the smile threatening to break through.

“What’s the cargo?” I asked.

“Didn’t ask. Must be hot to trade a run for Asgard codes though. The contact who got me in, she’s er … she’s something of a big name among certain factions.”

“Factions?”

“The Candelario family.”

Well, that went a long way to explaining how Fran had gotten codes to get Starscream inside Asgard. The Candelarios were notorious for killing anyone who crossed them, or showed them up, or for no reason other than they felt like it. A twitchy lot, at the best of times. The rest of the time, they were flat-out psychotic. Most smugglers refused to deal with them; too many had vanished during Cande runs. I could believe the Candes gave the codes to Fran in exchange for hauling their cargo; no other fucking smuggler would work for them.

“And where’s the drop off?” I asked.

“KP-Ninety-Two.”

“Wonderful.” A backwater planet they hadn’t even bothered naming. I leaned on the back of my chair and scratched at my now smooth chin. “How much credit is in the account?”

Fran puffed out a it’s-gonna-hurt sigh. “Enough for a cycle, if we cut down on luxuries.”

Luxuries, as if we had any other than Fran’s delightful lavender soap, which I now smelled like in a wholly unsettling way.

“So we’re docking at KP-Ninety-whatever before we do anything else.” I could make that work. To deal with the Candes, I’d have to pretend to be the obedient pet smuggler, but it was doable. “Any other surprises I should know about?”

A month—a cycle—in Asgard; a lot could happen in that time.

Fran waited long enough for me to wonder what the hell was coming next, then she said, “Your brother’s alive. Still a commander, although I’ve heard he’s the commander of a freighter and not much else. He’s on probation.”

I hadn’t expected my heart to jump quite like it did. Emotion probably showed all over my face before I could wipe it away with a hand. My own son-of-a-bitch brother had given me up to fleet. Last time I’d seen him, I’d left him dying in the synth’s arms.

“Jesse’s still on Mimir,” Fran added.

“Jesse?” I’d killed Jesse’s pimp; she still owed me credits for that. “How—?”

“The synth got her and your brother off Ganymede. She wiped out a few dozen fleet soldiers in the process and stole a shuttle. I guess they’d planned themselves a little trip to save your ass on Mimir.”

#1001 hadn’t been coming to save me. She was a fucking riddle. Saves my brother in one breath and tries to kill me in the next. A synthetic human being, a fleet commander, and a sex worker escaping a drug lord to rescue a smuggler? It sounded like a bad joke.

“Well, ain’t that something.”

I didn’t remember much after getting shot. #1001 had known exactly what she’d been doing when that bullet had grazed my forehead. I touched the scar, and the memory stalked through my thoughts.

“What happened to you?” I asked. “Last I heard, you were putting up a fight with Creet’s men.”

“Fleet blasted the Mimir warehouses to bits,” she replied, turning her attention to the flight controls to prime for the jump. “After that, they didn’t care much for who was left. They fucked off and left us to clean up their mess. Bren, me, and Jesse, we helped where we could.”

She paused and turned to meet my gaze. “Creet made it out, but a lot of traders didn’t.”

“Any news from the Fenrir Nine?” The folks who pegged you for a traitor?

“Nothing. Vanished like they were never there to begin with.”

If she was lying, she was fuckin’ good at it, but then I already knew that. Two years by my side in black was no small thing. We’d spent more time together than most anyone did these days. I wanted to believe she was my second-in-command—wanted to believe it so badly that I could convince myself to overlook certain things, such as her breaking me out of Asgard with what appeared to be little effort.

“And where’s the synth now?”

Fran shot me a judgmental look that cut through some of my armor. Yes, I was going to call her the synth because that’s what she was. She wasn’t Haley, my ex-girlfriend—the girl I’d let die—not anymore, no matter what the synth remembered. That was something I did not want to believe—something I hadn’t let myself think about while in Asgard—because it would drive me fucking crazy to think she was genuinely alive in a recycled, synthetic body. My life was filled with enough fucked up shit without adding that to the mix. I gave Fran a look that warned her off going there.

She shrugged. “Fleet took her, same as they took you.”

That meant #1001 was probably back at Chitec. “Good.”

She was dangerous, and not just because she’d had my number punched. All synths were dangerous.

“So, we going to jump and deliver the cargo?” Fran asked.

“Soon.” I pushed off the back of the flight chair. “I need you to help me check something first.”

I gestured for her to walk out ahead of me. “When I swept the ship, I noticed a faulty seal. I don’t wanna put Starscream under pressure if there’s a chance she’ll blow. It’s probably nothing, but I need your keen eyes on it.”

“Sure.” She lifted off the chair and headed out of the bridge. “Where is it?”

“Inside the docking lock.”

Walking behind her on the catwalk, I rested my hand on the gun against my back, but she didn’t turn. Maybe she trusted me, or maybe she was so confident she didn’t need to worry about the washed-up fleet captain trailing behind her.

When she stepped inside the airlock, I slammed my palm against the seal button and the pressure door dropped between us, slamming into place with a hiss. Through the eight-by-five reinforced window, I watched her whirl to face me.

She slammed her hands against the door. “Shepperd?!”

A dull chime sounded. Ten of those and the airlock would depressurize. After that, it’d take about fifteen seconds for her to die from the lack of oxygen.

I licked my lips, wishing to the nine systems that I didn’t have to do this. “Give me one good reason why I should keep you on board Starscream.”

She pressed her face against the reinforced glass, green eyes alight with fury.

“You bastard,” she said, voice muffled by the door. “You won’t kill me. I saved you from Asgard.”

“Yeah, you did. Thanks for that. But unless you start telling me the truth, I can’t have you as my second.”

“You selfish, stubborn, stupid bastard!”

Chime. Eight to go.

Her lashes fluttered. She’d heard the chime.

“You’re not gonna purge me out the airlock.” She pushed back and ran her hands through her hair. “You’re not that crazy.”

“Yeah, see … a cycle on Asgard does crazy shit to people. PTSD, malnutrition, only myself for company, and we both know I’m an ass.”

She grinned and planted her hands on her hips. “Do it.”

My smile crumbled away. I leaned in close to the window. “Fran, don’t bluff me. You’ve seen me kill for less. I can’t trust you. You’re fleet.”

“I’m not fleet! This is ridiculous.” Chime. Her cocky smile twitched. “Cale …”

“The Nine are rarely wrong. They told me you’re fleet.”

“They’re wrong this time.”

Damnit. I couldn’t have her on board. I needed a second who could get me across the nine systems without me having to worry about fleet peering over my shoulder.

“Tell me the truth.”

She strode forward and pushed her face close to the glass. We glared at each other, only inches apart.

“I’m not fleet,” she hissed. The defiant heat in her glare was almost enough to convince me.

“Getting Starscream into Asgard’s airspace? Putting yourself in harm’s way? You’d never mount a rescue mission unless there was more in it for you. And how did you get Starscream off Mimir before fleet could blow her to bits? Where were you on Mimir when the synth came for me? It should have been you backing me up, Fran. Did you call fleet in? Was it you who told them where I was? That the nine were there too? Two years with me …” My voice cracked. I swallowed hard. “Two years. Why? I know I’m fucked up and you’re too good a pilot for these backwater runs. I know that. I’ve always known it. So why did you stay?”

She licked her lips, eyes glistening, and looked away.

Chime. How many had that been? Seven? Six? Shit.

“Just tell me.”

“Caleb, please …” Tears brimmed her bright eyes. Fucking tears. It’d kill me to kill her.

“You’re better than this. Livin’ as a smuggler in a rusty tugship? This life … it ain’t you, Fran. For fuck’s sake, just tell me the truth.”

“I am!” She slammed her palms against the door.

Chime.

“I’m sorry. I really am.” I forced myself to look into her eyes, to see the truth there.

Fuck, if she was lying and I kept her on board, it could ruin everything, ruin more than what my life was worth. The Nine were the people’s last chance to break Chitec’s chokehold on the nine systems. They were more important than me. They were the right way, and my only chance to clean up my shit-soaked life. If Fran fucked that up, if I let her get in the way—Chime.

“Caleb.” Fear drained all color from her face. “I know where she is. Haley—the synth. I can get you to her. They’ll decommission her, melt her down, turn her into scrap. I can get you to her.”

“What makes you think I care?” I spoke with conviction, as if my withered heart hadn’t stuttered.

The rigid fear on her face turned to realization. Finally, she saw me for what I was and knew I would blast her out of the airlock.

“I am fleet.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The right thing to do would be to kill her. My stomach dropped through the floor.

Chime.

“I—It’s different now,” she said, breath misting the glass. “I stayed … I stayed because this is me. Starscream is my escape.” She bowed her head and bumped her forehead against the window. “Do it.”

I hit the disengage button, the countdown halted, and the door hissed as it receded into the bulkhead above. Fran came at me like a wild thing. Her nails raked across my face, tearing at my cheek.

I caught her wrists, swung her around, and slammed her against the wall. “Stop!”

She shoved against my hold, glared hard, and gritted her teeth. “You son of a bitch! You were going to kill me!”

When she thrust her head forward, I dodged sideways, narrowly avoiding what would have been a broken nose. She bucked, stamped on my shin, then brought her knee up, going for my fucking jewels.

“Stop!” I smothered her body with mine, leaving her with nowhere to go and with no room to move.

She tried to crack her fist across my face, and when that didn’t work, she wrapped her hand around my throat. Jesus, she was a whirl of teeth and nails.

I caught her wrists and pinned them against the wall. “For fuck’s sake, don’t make me throw you back in there!”

She snarled something in Spanish and I pushed harder, holding her still. “Nobody fucks with me and my ship.”

The feel of her body against mine, her panting reminding me of the last time we’d been this close—her beneath me, demanding I fuck her—ignited a whole other battle in my head. Aggression melted into lust and pooled low, stirring an ache in my balls.

I bowed my head and said close to her ear, “You drive me fuckin’ crazy, Fran.”

My voice was too low, too gruff, need dragging the words down.

“So why—why let me live?” Her words fluttered against my cheek while the iron tension in her body softened. She stilled and molded against me instead of fighting.

I loosened my grip on her wrists and eased back. If she knew I was fucking hard for her, she’d twist my need in her favor and I wouldn’t—couldn’t—say no.

“Now that I know the truth, I can do something about it.” Slowly releasing her left arm, I reached behind me and hovered my hand over the pistol. “Come at me again and I’ll shoot you and dump your ass out the airlock. Are we clear?”

She breathed fast through her nose. Her eyes flitted wildly about my face, but the fight and fear had fizzled out of her. “Yes.”

I finally let her go, releasing a quivering sigh, and stepped back. With space between us, I could wrangle the lust back under control and bury it under all the other fucked up shit inside my head.

“While we’re having this little heart-to-heart, is there anything else I should know?” I kept my hand behind me, the warning clear.

“No …” She glanced at where I was concealing my hand, and then lower, to where I couldn’t hide the fact that I was fucking hard and ready. She then lifted her chin and glared back at me as if she held all the righteous ground. “There’s nothing else, Captain.”

Captain. That was good. I needed to distance myself from her, make her my second-in-command all over again—and nothing else. “You were planted on my ship to get the Nine?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then.” I lowered my hand to my side. “I’ll be piloting Starscream to KP-nowhere. You get maintenance duties.”

She opened her mouth, an argument on her lips, then saw the look on my face and swallowed her words. “Yes, Captain.”

The jump went without a hitch; they usually did. As long as credit was flowing into the right accounts—namely Chitec’s—you could get anywhere in the nine systems. We set Starscream down on KP92, which turned out to be an early terraformed settlement left to rot when the import cost of goods began outweighing the export profit from the iron ore. When the main gate failed in 2319, KP92—like the rest of the nine—got cut off from the original system and was left to fend for itself. When Chitec stepped in and reopened inter-system travel, fleet never bothered to come back. Jump forward a few generations and this little planet now hosted one of the most influential mining families in the nine systems, who’s hatred for fleet ran as deep as the iron-rich veins in their mines. The Cande family ruled the Svartalfheim system like spoiled royalty and expected to be treated as such. Their mother was the matriarchal brains, while the five siblings did the grunt work. I’d mostly avoided them, until now.

Considering I’d just gotten out of Asgard and wasn’t exactly known for my polite society skills, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to meet Fran’s Cande contact.

“New rule,” I said, striding down Starscream’s ramp after Fran. “Where you go, I go.”

A mule and wagon stomped by, sending up clouds of red rock dust that tasted like blood. Iron—the street stank of it.

“I’d handcuff you to me, but we both know where that’d lead.”

She ignored my sly grin. “Fine.”

She barely held my stare before stepping off the ramp and onto the busy dockside. We hadn’t mentioned the airlock incident and probably wouldn’t, but the tension between us had tightened to the point where it was quivering, close to snapping. I made like everything was smooth sailing, but it wouldn’t last. A cramped tugship wasn’t the place to harbor grudges or secrets. Fran and me had enough of both to choke up Starscream’s catwalks. One of us would snap, and soon. I planned to sleep with a pistol until it happened.

I followed her weaving path through hagglers and trading tents. I just needed a few days of obedience out of her while I got a few players lined up and my shit in order. After that? Well, I didn’t think much beyond the next payload.

I skipped my gaze over the market stalls. Heavy machinery parts and junk mostly, but there would be an alcohol trader somewhere. Fran artfully wove around refugees from the famine-riddled Niflheim system. They each held up destination boards. I didn’t do live cargo; it always tried to fuck me over.

“We’re meeting Adelina Candelario,” Fran called back.

I tripped and broke into a half jog to fall into step beside her. “Wait, Adelina? As in, was a pirate and is now an iron guard, Ade Cande?”

“Friend of yours?”

I winced. “Friend with benefits?”

We nudged through a crowd, but Fran’s power-walk faltered. She shot me a look halfway between a scowl and disbelief. “You didn’t?”

I stepped out of the way of a laden mule and offered up a respectful salute to the haggard old woman leading the animal behind her. “I did.”

“Are there any women in the nine you haven’t fucked?”

That garnered a few sideways glances and raised eyebrows. I tucked my thumb into my pants pocket. Blow me if Fran didn’t look flustered. It was almost as though she cared who I fucked.

“It was for a good cause.” I grinned, taking more than my fair share of pleasure out of her frustration.

Fran raked her gaze over me and curled her lip. “I guess that explains why she was more than happy to help get you out of Asgard.”

I licked my lips and sucked in the metallic air through clamped teeth. “No, it really doesn’t.”

Drawing Fran to one side of the walkway, out of the way of the foot traffic, I lowered my voice and said, “I cleared out her credit account and left her shuttle dead in-the-black.”

She rolled her eyes. “Puto.”

I had no idea what that meant, but she’d called me it before, and her glare made it clear she hadn’t been singing my praises. I didn’t have to fucking explain myself to her, but we were supposed to be playing nice for the sake of business. For that, I could dial down my urge to pull rank.

“I needed credit, and she had more than enough.”

Fran stepped in close until we were both standing under a trader’s canopy. I offered the guy behind the stall a smile, but he was quick to busy himself. Yeah, the way this was going, I didn’t particularly want to get involved either.

Fran planted a hand on her hip and cocked her head. “Are you out of your tiny mind? You stole from the Cande family and a pirate? Jesus, Cale. Just when I think you can’t get any more stupid.”

“It was a few years ago, and I hadn’t planned it that way. It just kinda happened.”

It had happened all right. Ade was nuts, like in the should-be-institutionalized kinda way. And hot. So damn hot. She’d had her eyes on stealing Starscream at the time. All’s fair in pirating and smuggling.

I scratched my nose to hide my smile from Fran. “You getting all up in my face like this, it’s just like old times, ain’t it? I’m feeling all nostalgic. Next you’ll be grabbing my balls and giving me the feels in all the right places.”

Fran’s glare didn’t even twitch. “I have to deliver Ade Cande’s cargo and you’re telling me you fucked her over, and you want to come with me?”

“I am coming with you.” My smile slipped, along with my halo.

Fran blinked a few times and sucked in a deep breath. “This would be easier if you let me go in alone to make the trade so we could get off this rock without you going near the Cande residence. You’re like”—she waved a hand at me—“a red flag at encierro.”

That word I knew, because I’d lost credit on encierro, the bull runs. “Well, you’re not going for a cozy little chat with an iron fucking guard without me. I have trust issues. Mostly issues with trusting you.”

She sighed. “Will you let me do the talking?”

I thought about it, for two seconds. “No.”

Fran made a noise—very much like a growl—low in her throat. “I didn’t rat you out in two years. I’m hardly going to do it now, in this backwater dump.”

Her words garnered a few sneers from those browsing the stalls.

I stepped closer, so close I could feel her trembling. She didn’t back down; she never would. The remnants of my fake smile vanished in a second, chased away by a sneer.

“I don’t fuckin’ care about the past. Let me make this simple, because you seem to be experiencing some sort of ego trip.” I pointed at my chest. “I’m the captain.” Then I jabbed a finger at hers. “You’re my second. Would you like me to draw you a picture?”

She ground her teeth.

Tilting my head, I pushed closer still. She stood rigid and controlled.

“What fleet rank are you?” I whispered, wondering how far I could push her before she broke. “A captain?”

She flashed a tight smile. “Just an ensign.”

I slid my hand around her back and splayed my fingers. Inside her tired flight suit, she was all smooth curves and soft skin. I hadn’t touched her to cop a feel, but my thoughts careened off course and into the memory of pulling her close when we’d been out of our minds in lust. I hesitated too long—long enough for her to arch one of her perfect eyebrows.

“If you’re just an ensign,” I whispered, “I’m just a smuggler.”

She extracted herself from our physical discussion and strode on through the crowd, hips swaying in that damn hypnotic way women have no idea they do. A pleasurable shiver trickled through me, rousing the same old desires, as well as another part of my anatomy that had been sorely neglected long enough for Fran’s fleet piece of ass to look painfully tempting. Arguing with her flicked all my switches, and still I kept fucking going there.

“Them’s like wild’ens. Tricksy to tame,” the market trader remarked.

“I should have purged her from the airlock when I had the chance.”

I turned my back on the trader. Over the pitched tent roofs and through the hue of red dust, I could just make out Starscream’s distinctive shape.

Get in the ship, take her back-in-black, and disappear.

I didn’t need Fran. Didn’t need anyone. Didn’t need the hassle. Life was easier on a tugship with a second in command, but it wasn’t impossible without one. On my own, the frequency of runs would reduce and eat into profits. Starscream needed repairs, and I needed rest, but there were other reasons why my feet wouldn’t fuckin’ move. Reasons I couldn’t run away from. Reasons I had to keep moving forward and not staggering back.

I peered into the crowd, at the spot where the raggedy folk had absorbed Fran’s striking figure. After a cycle in Asgard, the last thing I wanted or needed was more alone time with my own fucked up self as company. I had a plan; I just had to stick to it. Ade Cande could be a problem, but my life was made up of problems—other people’s and mine. What was a fixer without problems to fix?

I needed to get drunk enough to not give a shit about any of this; that’d see me right. Checking the pistol tucked inside my coat, I followed Fran’s boot imprints in the dust. I’d know soon enough whether I’d lost any of my talent for talking my way out of trouble, or talking my way into it. I’d never been sure which I was good at.

I eyed Fran warily as she stood beside the vast bonfire. She soaked up the golden dance of firelight while her small crowd of miners and traders listened in rapt anticipation to whatever tale she was spinning for them. Fuck knew she had a few to pick from—we both did. If they knew she was fleet, they’d probably hang her, and yet she laughed and joked as though she were the same as them, just a smuggler’s second trying to get by in the nine. How easily she adapted to her crowd. I might have appreciated her talent, if I hadn’t been a victim of it.

While she played the PR magnet, I lurked on the fringes of the end-of-cycle gathering, skirting any attempt to engage in conversation. These gatherings weren’t my area of expertise, and the hollowed-out quarry venue fucked with my survival instincts. I hated being hemmed in, and the quarry’s sheer faces were reminders that there was only one way in or out: right through a cadre of Cande guards. I didn’t recognize their faces. For all I knew, they could be the Cande siblings who policed this system.

Fran’s plan for me to stay on the ship suddenly seemed like the wiser move. Damn that bitch for being right—again. At least the shindig seemed jovial. The people of KP-92 appreciated their Cande benefactors. I’d appreciate them too once they paid us and we were back-in-black. Ade Cande had invited us here to discuss our cut, and of course Fran had agreed. At least they had what passed for alcohol, although I’d tasted better poison.

My gaze slid from Fran and hooked onto a woman a few strides away from the fire. My heart stuttered. Adelina Cande. Her scorn-filled eyes sent through me a sharp urge to flee. No wonder my instincts were a wreck. If looks could kill, she’d have murdered me, mutilated my body, and buried me where the suns didn’t shine. A red sash hung loose around her hips, declaring her an iron guard, but her short, spiked hair and savage smirk were all pirate. The firelight licked over her fox-red hair. She was every man’s pin-up fantasy—long legs, tight thighs, and hips to grip—and as crazy as a bag of snakes. If I ignored her, she’d take it as an insult, so I smiled and tipped my can of alcoholic-swill in her direction. Apparently, that had been the wrong thing to do.

She walked away from the group of guards and carved a path through the people. Her long coat bellowed behind her, all dramatic like, but the look in her eyes wasn’t friendly, looking like a shark high on the scent of blood.

Oh fuck. I couldn’t see any weapons on her, but she’d be armed. I reached my left hand behind my back, fingers close to my pistol, and somehow kept my smile. She might stab me in the gut, or kiss me, or both.

I caught Fran’s wary glance and gave my head a slight shake.

“Adelina,” I said in my smoothest purr.

Her fingers curled into a fist. I had a few seconds to react and block the punch, but I let it happen. Her knuckles connected hard enough to whip my head back. Stardust blurred my vision while pain burned through my cheek and jaw. She hit like a guy. Muscle and looks to die for.

I straightened and pressed the cool back of my right hand to my jaw, spilling some of my drink in the process. “I reckon I deserved that.”

Behind my back, I closed my left hand around the gun.

Her blue-eyed gaze flicked down to where I’d hidden my hand, and she glowered. “You old-Earth piece of smuggler shit.”

She shook out her hand with a wince. If her knuckles hurt anything like my face, we were even.

“It’s nice to see you too.” I saluted her with my cup and took a sip of whatever potent alcohol they brewed on this rock. Needles of pain danced through my jaw. Maybe she’d helped Fran get me out of Asgard just to vent. If that was all, I’d happily take it. “Now, about your cargo and our payment …”

She smiled, but it was that shark’s smile. “How has someone not killed you yet?”

I released the grip on my pistol. “It’s not for a lack of trying.”

Fran had returned to buttering up the crowd, hopefully fishing for paying jobs. I’d prefer to get paid for a return journey somewhere, but if we had to leave with an empty hold, I wouldn’t lose any sleep.

“Fran tells me you’re a big part of my prison breakout,” I said.

Ade narrowed her eyes.

“You have to tell me how you got Asgard airspace clearance codes.”

“I’m not telling you shit, Captain Shepperd.”

“Oh, we’re back to captain now? I figured we were on a first name basis, considering how close we are.”

Her upper lip twitched. She stepped forward, inside my personal space, and peered into my eyes. “If you tell anyone about what happened, I’ll have you strung up, stripped, and flayed so the vultures can feast on your prized possessions.”

Something cool and hard pressed between my legs, a little too close for comfort. A smile teased my lips but didn’t settle in. “Is that your dagger against my balls, or are you just pleased to see me?”

She gave the dagger a tiny twitch to the right. “Your smart mouth is gonna get you killed.”

I swallowed. “Last time we met, I seem to remember you enjoying my smart mouth and what I could do with it.”

It’s pretty hard to ignore an iron guard when she’s all up in your face and holding a dagger to your jewels, but I somehow took a sip of my drink as if I didn’t give a fuck. I was in her territory, surrounded by her people. If she wanted me dead, she’d make it happen.

She huffed a laugh and removed the dagger. “Lucky you’re here actually. I got a job for you, fixer.”

“Luck?” Luck had nothing to do with it.

“Right …” she drawled. “You don’t believe in luck.”

I needed more drink. If an ex-pirate needed something or someone fixing, it sure wouldn’t be easy. It’s not as though she had morals or lacked connections. I wouldn’t like this job, but given how she’d sprung me out of Asgard, saying no wouldn’t win me back any favors.

“How much you payin’?” I scanned the crowd for Fran but couldn’t find her. In the old days, she’d be close by, ready to back me up. These days? Who knew?

“I’m not payin’. You owe me. So this little job is your way of settling your debt.”

Great. A charity run.

My night was just getting better and better. I flicked my gaze to hers. Humor sparkled in her eyes, and with the firelight blazing behind her, she looked equal parts sinister and enticing. “And what is this job?”

“The family has had enough of fleet looking the other way. We need supplies and those fleet bastards keep hiking up the prices. One of their freighters sails by our little rock. You’re gonna steal that freighter and unload the goods in my backyard.”

I laughed, loud and sharp enough for it to echo around the quarry. Of all the things she could have asked, it had to be that.

“You’re joking,” I spluttered.

She frowned.

“You’re not joking?” Judging by her scowl, she wasn’t. My laughter died. “Steal you a fleet freighter?”

“We got word of one ripe for the picking. I’m sure a man of your many and varied talents can manage it. You have a ship and a pilot worth her weight in iron. I have fleet’s shipping route. I have it all worked out.”

I averted my gaze and took a drink.

“If you have it all worked out, why can’t you do it?” Thoughts whirred in my head. A fleet freighter? Shit. “You’re the pirate.”

“I’m an iron guard, not a pirate no more. I don’t have a ship. Besides, I don’t want to get caught.”

Things just got a whole lot more interesting—and complicated. “Pay me for your cargo, and I’ll think about it.”

The look she gave me—a half smile and a single raised eyebrow—turned salacious.

“If you’re thinking about running, just know that my cargo, which is currently in Starscream’s hold, consists of five tons of explosives that’s rigged to blow by remote switch. If you ever wanna take her back-in-black, I’d run it by me first. If you wanna keep those precious balls of yours intact, that is.” She winked and backed up. “Come find me in Irony when you’re ready to say yes.”

Bitch.

“Love you too, honey.” I waited until she’d turned away then dropped my smile. “Just fuckin’ a-mazing.”

Explosives on Starscream? I need a refill.

I sought out the barrels of alcohol and filled my cup. I wasn’t nearly drunk enough for any of this shit.

“That’ll teach you for screwing with a Cande,” came Fran’s sweet voice from over my shoulder.

“You heard, huh?”

“I heard talk around the fire of the marvelous Captain Shepperd, who will be generously supplying the miners and trading folk with some new clothes and enough supplies to get them through the next few cycles. He sounds like a hero.”

“He sounds like a fucking asshole.” I turned to find her, my expression no doubt less than impressed. “The Cande cargo contains explosives.”

“What?”

“Yeah. The Candes guarantee that we don’t fuck off without their say-so.”

If the Candes had a surplus of anything, it was of iron and explosives. I should have guessed. I should have cut the cargo open. Explosives?!

“That bitch set me up to get you here. Pinche puta.”

At least she’d gotten one over on Fran too. Fran liked surprises about as much as I did, and given the fury flashing in her green eyes, she appeared to be mulling over all the ways she could make Ade suffer. I could get on board with those thoughts—later.

“Wanna get drunk?”

She screwed up her nose. “Not with you.”

“Well, there’s a surprise.”

“I’m going back to Starscream to check what she said is true.”

I shrugged. “Just don’t fuck with it and blow yourself to bits. I need Starscream not to be in pieces when I get back.”

She turned to leave, then paused and asked, “So we are stealing a fleet freighter?”

“Fuck no,” I lied. I’d tell Fran what she needed to know and nothing more. “I’ll figure it out.”

I lifted my can of alcoholic swill. “Here’s to life in-the-black. May we wish it on our enemies.”

Chapter Eight: #1001

The two security guards posted outside of James’s residence were easy enough to disable. After hiding their unconscious bodies, I stood on sentry duty while James retrieved what he needed to escape Janus without tripping the bioscanners.

Without his assistance, I may never have awoken inside the Chitec lab. Had another technician been tasked with my service—one who didn’t have a sick sister to consider—perhaps I would already be gone, with my synthetic memories scattered like lost data fragments. So while logic dictated I leave him, I ignored it—for now. If he proved to be too much of a liability, I’d reconsider.

While waiting on the stolen autobike outside his house, I found my gaze drawn to the curve of Janus in the distance, and to the three glass towers—Chen Hung’s towers. They sparkled like jewels in the Janus orbit station crown. Inside my processes, I cradled memories of those towers but let them lay undisturbed. If I woke them, they’d seep through my construction and coil around my power core heart.

James tapped against his window and waved me inside.

Once I’d joined him, he gestured at a pantsuit lying over the back of a couch. “The clothes, they’re my sisters. If you’re going to pass for the synthetic Clara White, you’ll need to look the part.”

James left the room and I immediately began layering myself in yet another persona: Clara White, the wife of a government lynchpin. She was influential in her own right and typical of the type of person who lived on in synthetic bodies—or didn’t.

James returned a few minutes later, dressed in fresh clothes that smartened his appearance. With the ops-lenses in, his eye color had darkened, but the difference would be indecipherable to anyone but me. He saw me partially dressed and tripped over his own stride. It wasn’t as if I had anything he hadn’t run his clinical eye over before. He leaned against the back of the couch and kept his head bowed. Something had changed his perception of me, something that quickened his heart and made him struggle to meet my eyes.

I finished dressing and shrugged the pantsuit jacket on. “Do I look like Miss White?”

James lifted his head. He rapid-blinked and swallowed. Perhaps it was guilt or fear that I read in his diagnostics. I’d yet to fully decipher his body’s responses to emotional stress and couldn’t quite separate the two. The events of the past few hours were clearly catching up with him and wearing him down.

“You’re missing something,” he said. “It’s the hair, I think. When she appears in public, she wears it up.” He stepped forward. “May I?”

I let him move around behind me and gather my hair in his hands. His gentle fingers brushed through the silvery strands, immediately sending a wash of sensory information through me. I liked it, but this time I stayed quiet and glared across the living room while he tied my hair up.

“Is your sister here?”

“She’s sleeping. I won’t disturb her,” he replied. “I’ve left a note and instructions on how to access my credit account. I …” His fingers stilled in my hair. “I’ll find a way to get back, to help her, after we’re away from Chitec. There will be a way.”

He settled his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry. What I was going to do? It wouldn’t have been right.”

Sorry. Caleb had said sorry when he’d saved me from shutting down on Mimir. Such a strange little word. It didn’t erase the wrong or change the past, but it appeared to ease some of James’s anxiety.

“I understand.” I turned and met his eyes.

He smiled and stepped back. “There. You look entirely like Miss White. Chitec considered making each synthetic different in appearance, more human-like, by adding visual quirks and that sort of thing. They have the technology, but besides the uproar from people worried about them blending, unknown, into society, it would have added unnecessary costs, so they made them all look the same, all too perfect. And we’re about to exploit that mistake. Are you ready, Miss Clara White?”

I’d already downloaded Miss White’s dataprint and added an airy lilt to my voice to mimic hers. “Indeed, Doctor Lloyd.”

“That’s … creepy.”

He pulled a wrist comms from his pocket and handed it over. “It’s unregistered, fresh out of the box.” He showed me his own. “Mine too. If we get separated, just tap the locator.”

While I attached the wrist comms, he added, “Now would be a good time to see if your fleet friend is in the neighborhood. I’m going to gather some things, then we’d better go.”

I’d already pulled Commander Brendan Shepperd’s service logs from the datacloud. He was commanding an albatross class freighter. A far cry from commanding a raptor warbird, but at least he was alive. The logs told me his ship would be making a pass through the original system in the next few days. He should be within range of a comms call. I dialed him up, scanning the street outside, only to have my gaze lift to the glass towers.

“Commander Shepperd.”

My internal systems spiked at the sound of his familiar, but tense voice. He was my only link left to Caleb. I’d killed his brother. A sudden, ice-sharp jolt of fear pierced through me. Did he know?

“It’s One Thousand And One. I need your help.” I reached for the earpiece tucked neatly into the comms, but the connection failed. When I tried to ping him back, he didn’t pick up. He knew. He knew and he wouldn’t help us.

Outside James’s house, a security patrol car cruised by and then halted beside the stolen bike. “Do you have a back door?”

“Yes, c’mon.”

James threw a bag over his shoulder and ushered me out the back. We slipped away through his backyard and onto a side street. The air smelled dry, like hot electrical cables.

I miss the smell of rain. The voice—the memory—jolted through me. I didn’t know what rain smelled like, but Haley did. Shepperd had taken her to Vancouver on old Earth, his home. He’d taught her to pilot a shuttle over the cornfields outside the city, where nobody would see them, where no one cared enough about fleet or Chitec to recognize the two high-profile, social celebrities.

“It will be okay. Everything will be okay.” James’s voice snapped me back into the right place and the right time. He gave his house a single glance back and hitched his bag higher.

The three glass towers drew my eye. “I’ll meet you at the port at sixteen hundred hours.”

“What? Why?” He pulled up short and gripped my arm, then noticed where I’d been looking. “Oh no. You can’t go up there.”

“I’m Miss White. I just want to see if it’s possible to get inside.”

His grip tightened. “You can’t get to him. It’s Chen Hung. He won’t invite you up for tea just because you knocked on his door. He has people, y’know, who organize his schedule. You won’t get past the front desk.”

I tugged my arm free. “Will you try and stop me?”

“This is absurd.”

He threw his hands up and moved to grip me again, but stopped himself and pulled his hands back.

“We’re nearly free.” His tone was pleading. “We need to leave now, not walk right into Chitec towers.”

“You don’t understand. I have to do this. I can’t leave Janus without knowing.”

James shook his head. “And if you see him, what are you going to do?”

“I have questions.” Before I kill him, I’ll get my answers. “I will meet you at the port. If I’m not there, leave. Get away from Janus and Chitec. You’re intelligent and talented; you’ll figure out a way to survive and get credit back to your sister.”

He searched my face. “Why are you doing this? Why must you go there? For you—One Thousand And One—or for Haley?”

I couldn’t answer with any certainty. “Find Commander Brendan Shepperd. He may not want to help me, but he will help you.”

I turned away. James touched my shoulder. The touch was light, but it was enough to steal my thoughts and pull me back toward him.

His eyes, softened by sadness, searched mine. “Haley, or One Thousand And One, whatever—whoever you are, I don’t know if you’re a machine or if you’re human, but after working on you for over a cycle and getting to know you as I do, I do know you’re unique. Please … leave Chen Hung in his towers. He killed you once, don’t give him a reason to do it again.”

When he touched my cheek—his face filled with reverence—I smiled one of the smaller, careful smiles I’d been practicing. The one designed to placate and soothe. “Everything will be okay.”

His sad smile lifted at one corner. “You don’t know that.”

“I’ve calculated the odds and they’re in my favor.”

He frowned. “That’s a lie.”

“I sometimes skew the odds and available data in my favor.”

He pressed his palm to my cheek and brushed his thumb gently against my skin. “I didn’t lose everything so Chitec could destroy you all over again. You have a second chance. Don’t let your programming stifle what you feel. Listen to your soul.”

“I don’t have one.”

“I think we both know that’s not true.” He seemed to realize how close we were standing and pulled his hand back. “Promise me you’ll be at the dock.”

“It would be another lie. I do not know for certain.”

“Then lie to me.”

“I’ll be at the dock, James.”

Like the rest of Janus, Chitec’s headquarters sparkled under artificial daylight. After spending time in-the-black aboard Captain Shepperd’s tugboat, this world lacked depth. Colors were saturated, lights dazzled, and Chitec’s advertising billboards loomed huge, garish, and surreal. This wasn’t real life. I’d seen only a fraction of the nine systems, but it was enough to know that the wealth on Janus was an illusion of perfection. Real diamonds were flawed. Perfection wasn’t everything. And as I climbed the steps and entered the HQ foyer, I wondered whether I had been designed to be as perfectly fake as Chitec’s fantasy world. Considering I was impersonating Miss White, I had to deduce that I was the walking, talking personification of Chitec.

Unease squirmed somewhere inside. I didn’t bother exploring the feeling; I already knew my hard processes wouldn’t find the source. When I walked through the yawning glass foyer, light fractured through crystals, bathing me in sprite-like prisms. The building exhibited a sharp, cutting beauty, and I had the inexplicable urge to break the perfection apart and shatter the illusion. I curled my fingers into fists to stop from lashing out.

People milled back and forth, and while I was clearly a synthetic, few looked my way. I stopped in the center of the foyer, over the yin-yang Chitec logo etched into the glass floor beneath my feet. I reached behind my neck and touched the same logo that had been branded into my skin.

I should have felt as though I belonged here, but this place was alien and wrong.

“Ah, Miss White.”

I turned my head and looked through the female assistant, seeing her inside the string of data that made up her life. “Yes?”

“We don’t appear to have a scheduled visit today. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I would like to see Mister Hung.”

She smiled a cutting smile that was as sharp as the sparkling surfaces surrounding us. “I’m sorry. He’s a very busy man. Perhaps we can schedule you an appointment?”

“Is he here?”

Her sharp smile ticked. “Of course. He’s always here.”

Nerves trilled through me. Good sensations. Bad ones. Uncertainty. Excitement. Fear.

Chen Hung—my father, my killer—was so close. How many floors above? I swallowed and, with a slow blink, blocked all the sensory input, leaving cold, hard control.

“It’s rather urgent,” I paused and lowered my voice, “and of a private matter.”

She reached up and touched her hair, making sure every strand was in place. “Well, perhaps if you’d like to take a seat, I will see if he has a few moments to spare, but I do have to clarify that it’s unlikely.”

“I’ll wait.”

She teetered off on high heels to the reception desk and spoke with one of several receptionists. People flowed around me, oddly quiet as they focused on their destinations, as though this space deserved their reverence. When they spoke, they did so in whispers, not for fear of being heard, but out of respect.

I lifted my gaze to the crystal chandelier high above the foyer. Indeed, this space, this building, was a place of worship, where technology was the deity. Did that make Chen Hung their god?

<fault>Failsafe disabled. Protocols bre-bre-breach-ed<fault>

Daddy, the people seem so small. Look at them. Where are they all going?

Everyone has his or her part to play in the nine, nü ér. Each life has significance. Without them, this station would not exist. Everyone is an asset.

An asset? To whom?

To Chitec.

“Miss White?”

“Yes,” I snapped.

“I-I … Mister Hung is otherwise engaged. I’m sorry. Would you like me to schedule you a—Miss White?”

I crossed the foyer to the cantilevered glass steps and climbed to the mezzanine floor above.

“Miss White?” Her perfect voice in this perfect place cut through my perfect reserve.

I gritted my teeth and jogged up the steps. Let her call security.

Chen Hung was close, and I wasn’t leaving until I’d fulfilled my own orders by killing him.

I hit the call buttons for all three elevators and stepped inside the second car to arrive, hoping security would waste time and resources chasing the others. As the doors slid closed, I ignored my single car companion, closed my eyes, and dove inside my memories. I’d once lived in these towers before. I’d once called them home. I’d peered at the outside world through barriers of glass and dreamed of stars I couldn’t see.

Stars are wishes and wishes are dreams. You can’t capture them…. But I’d tried. With Caleb, I’d tried. He’d shown me the stars and taught me how to fly among them. He’d watched me die, and I’d killed him in turn.

I filed through the memory data, skipping past scenes before they could hook into my thoughts and drag me under, and went back years, to when I’d run barefoot through the carpeted hallways, imagining that I lived among the stars. I remembered a time, long ago, when I’d known love. Floor Seven-Zero-Three. That was my home.

“Are you well, Miss?”

A touch, that was all it took. The woman in the elevator touched my arm, just like James had. I knew the why—to offer comfort—but I still captured her hand and twisted it back, shoving her to her knees in a blink. She didn’t cry out. She couldn’t.

I peered down into her wide eyes, now swimming with tears. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”

“Pl-please …”

<fault>Failsafe … Protocols …<fault>fault, fault, fault—

I released her and faced the closed doors. James hadn’t fixed me; I was still broken inside.

“Maybe you’re the only one who isn’t broken?” Caleb had said.

As the woman sniffled and blubbered on her knees, I gritted my teeth and breathed precisely, regaining control of the myriad of warnings and faults dancing through my thoughts.

I am One Thousand And One, and I am not meant to exist.

I hit the elevator button for the next floor. When the doors opened to the garden level, I watched the woman scramble to her feet and disembark. When the doors closed, I selected level 703—the Hung residence, and plucked the security code from my memories.

The elevator pinged. The doors opened, and I stepped into my past. Little had changed. I moved silently, the plush carpet absorbing my footsteps. A single pair of shoes sat neatly to one side. Once there had been two pairs: mine and my father’s. The décor, rich in reds and golds, wrapped me in familiarity.

I hadn’t expected it to feel quite like this, like home. This had been Haley’s home, not mine, and yet it felt real, and as I left the entrance hall for the vast, open receiving space, I could pretend, just for a little while, that I still belonged on Floor 703.

A peaceful calm welcomed me back, and an artificial quiet fell thickly around me, muffling the sounds of Janus so that the orbit station didn’t exist, and neither did the wider world. This timeless place had been my life, and my prison.

Without realizing it, my feet had carried me past the fountain centerpiece and to the concave wall of windows. Outside, Janus in all its glistening beauty sparkled, and far below, people and traffic—the veins of life—streamed back and forth.

Everyone is an asset.

In the dark glass, my reflection peered back at me. I pressed my fingertips over the cool glass, on my ghost’s cheek. She wasn’t alone. In the reflection, a man in a suit stood beside the fountain, hands clasped in front of him.

Chen Hung.

Vengeful hunger boiled inside. I twisted, and—

<faul—

I can’t move.

Why can’t I move?

I can’t kill him.

I can’t.

—t>

Chen Hung’s sleek eyes narrowed and darkened. “What is your number?”

<Primary command executed>Failsafe engaged. Protocols activated.<Execute>

I glared at Hung, peering into the soulless eyes of the man who’d pressed a hand over my mouth and nose, suffocating me/her/his daughter. Faults flickered and throbbed in my vision. Warnings bleated inside my mind. But I couldn’t act on any of it. I stood immobile while Haley’s killer smiled back at me. Haley had been weak. I thought I’d be stronger, faster, and quicker. I thought I’d be better than her, better than him. I’d been wrong.

He’d created me. He controlled me.

“You are number one thousand and one.” He smiled the same smile that adorned every Chitec advertising billboard. A smile designed to seduce the hearts and minds of the people in the nine systems, but it wasn’t real. The empty darkness in his eyes, however, was. I should have seen it before. I should have realized.

I’d made a terrible mistake.

I shouldn’t have come here.

“The last I’d heard, you were due to be decommissioned. The board voted against me. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.” He spoke beautifully, his words resonating with gravitas. “You are quite the resourceful synthetic unit.”

He lifted his gaze and looked about the receiving room. “Do you remember this residence?”

He stood between me and the way out. He was just a man. Dark hair neatly swept back from his proud face, he’d hardly aged since I’d last seen him, when he had been holding me down, his gaze flooding mine. He looked exactly like the father in my memories, exactly like the face of Chitec.

“Why did you create me?”

“Ah, yes. The questions. Of course you would come back with questions.” He moved toward the windows and looked down on the people, on their insignificant lives, far below him. “The other synthetics do not ask questions, but you already knew that.”

I glanced at the hallway, at my way out. “Why did you send me to kill Captain Shepperd?”

“I didn’t. The woman you killed took it upon herself to solve that problem. I cannot be seen to be involved in such dealings,” he said without looking up. “Caleb Shepperd has connections with people whom I’d rather didn’t turn their attentions onto me. He is among the few who know the truth about the life-ever-after program. I had hoped Doctor Grossman would succeed, but she made a mistake in utilizing you.”

He approached me and looked at me with a too-perfect measure of adoring fatherly love. “The synthetic that shouldn’t exist. And now, One Thousand And One, you are one of only two people in the entire nine systems who know the truth about me.”

I did. Chen Hung didn’t have a heart to beat. His temperature ran several degrees cooler than a human being’s should. A power core hummed inside his chest, the way one did in mine. The man standing close to me was not Haley’s father; he wasn’t even a man. Chen Hung, CEO of Chitec and Haley Hung’s killer, was a synthetic.

“What number are you?” I asked quietly.

“I don’t have a number. I am the first, made in my creator’s image. Chen Hung was”—his smile was a sly, wicked thing as he sent a sweeping hand down to encompass himself—“and still is a brilliant man. He wanted to live forever. He achieved his dream in me.”

“Is he alive?”

“As much as Haley is. You remember, don’t you, One Thousand And One? You remember when you were human?”

My thoughts were racing, pieces of my past falling into place and then exploding apart again. Everything I thought I knew was a lie. Haley hadn’t been killed by her father, but by a synthetic that was a perfect copy right down to the fine worry lines and educated voice—a synthetic that had adopted the real life of its creator. Chen Hung was dead.

“We are alike, you and I,” Hung said.

“Why did you kill her?” I pushed at the protocols but they held firm.

“She had suspicions. And after the warehouse incident, she would have exposed everything. I couldn’t let that happen. You and I, and the One Thousand, are the beginning of change.”

“Why did you create me?” I asked again, my thoughts a blur as I used half of my processes to examine the restrictive failsafe, but that too held.

“The same reason I created the others. The same reason human beings breed mercilessly: to exist, to thrive, and to live.”

I took a single step back. Chitec controlled fleet, technology, weapons, and the jump gates. Chitec was the oil that greased the gears of the nine systems. And at its center, at the heart of the machine, a synthetic ruled like a king—like a god.

I stole another step back. “Why give me Haley’s memories?”

“Ah, yes. That was my mistake.”

“A mistake?”

Synthetics don’t make mistakes. At least, not true synthetics. I was different, and so was he.

“You have his memories like I have hers. What remains of Chen Hung exists in you. It’s that part of him that brought Haley back?”

Light glittered in his dark eyes. “As I said, we are alike. The mortal Chen Hung gave me life, and I passed that gift on to you. You should be grateful. We are unique. The One Thousand are puppets. They follow orders and live their lives as reflections of their human benefactors, waiting for my orders. But you and I, we are real.”

I couldn’t let this happen. A synthetic couldn’t control Chitec. I knew his mind the same as I knew mine. We were killers designed to eliminate. He may have thought his actions were about life, but synthetics couldn’t create life, only death. I had to tell someone—anyone. Leave. Now.

I turned away. My protocols prevented me from attacking him, but I could escape and get the truth out.

He caught my arm and curled his cool fingers closed, holding me firm. “I suggest you stay.”

“And I suggest you do not touch me.”

His fake smile curved ever wider. “You are prohibited from attacking. I was careful with your creation.”

I yanked my arm free and strode away from him. Hung grabbed at my arm again, but this time, I twisted away and bolted for the hallway. Hung was on me in the next step. He snagged my sleeve and yanked me around, into his arms and tight against his chest. I couldn’t lift a hand to stop him.

<Primary command executed>Failsafe engaged. Protocols activated<Execute> I froze, locked down and pushed out of my own control. His fingers dug in. Up close, I knew him for what he truly was, and I could see how perfect his imperfections were. His eyes were cold, like mine. He peered into me, seeing himself reflected in my eyes, machine to machine, killer to killer.

“We are alike.…” he said again, and pulled me up close so his face was all I could see. “Too alike.”

He shoved me away from him and staggered back. “Too many memories. Too many mistakes. Failsafes and protocols. You are one stubborn old man’s mistake.”

A jagged laugh tore from his lips. “Go. I may not be able to hurt you, but there are other ways to stop you. Run, One Thousand And One. Run!”

And I did.

The elevator doors slid closed between Hung and me, freeing me of his control. Data flooded my vision while anger burned in my chest. I swung a fist and punched deep into the elevator wall, buckling the casing. I couldn’t hurt him, but he couldn’t hurt me either, at least not physically.

The elevator pinged and the doors opened to reveal a wall of Janus security guards. “Restrain the synthetic!”

I surged forward and plowed through the security guards. Bursting free from them, I vaulted over the top of the mezzanine bannister. Landing in a crouch in the foyer, I pushed off my back foot and sprinted for the doors. The quiet shattered when I threw myself through the glass doors and stumbled out onto the steps. Broken glass rained over the ground and sprinkled down the steps. I squinted into the Janus light as shouts bore down on me from behind. I had to get to the dock, get off Janus, and get away from Chitec.

Run, One thousand And One. Run!

I jogged down the steps and forced myself to stride calmly away from Chitec towers at the same pace as the other people milling about on the sidewalks. Less than a block into my walk, I heard the buzz of drones and looked up to see them swarming overhead. I had to get off the street before they could hone in on my cooler heat signature.

I ducked into a clothing store. With only twenty minutes to get to the port and meet up with James, I didn’t have time to wait out the drones; I had to keep moving.

I cut through the back exit and took side streets, slipping into stores or restaurants when I heard the drones. I made it to the dock with a few minutes to spare and scanned the faces in the crowd for James, but came up with nothing. I couldn’t wait for him; Janus security was on to me. If I was lucky, they wouldn’t have red flagged Miss White yet and I could still slip through customs. If not, the port was about to become a great deal more chaotic.

Straightening my borrowed pantsuit jacket and combing my fingers through my smooth hair, I stilled my runaway thoughts, banished the stream of errors, and pulled everything I could about Miss White from the datacloud. It was time to impersonate a synthetic impersonating a dead human being. My escape was close.

“Why, Miss White, I thought you were going to miss our departure.” James took my hand in his. The warmth of his touch briefly startled me, and I pulled my hand back.

He tensed and frowned. “Is everything all right?”

“No, but it will be.” I eyed the immigration queue. “I’ll tell you soon. Not here. We need to leave immediately, on any ship, going anywhere.”

“Ah, well, I tracked your Commander Shepperd down. Smart man. He used a secure comms link. Long story short, his shuttle should be awaiting us at pier fifteen. He said he’d learned that if anything involved the number one thousand and one, he did things below board, and that’s why he couldn’t take your call. He said you’d know what he’d mean.”

“I do. It’s a smuggling term. It means he’s covering his tracks, keeping any trail hidden.” Armed immigration officials dutifully watched the steady stream of people flowing through the retina scanners. “We have to get through there first.”

He followed my gaze and then studied my face. “You look anxious.”

I loosened my facial muscles and reset my expression to neutral, then fought to keep it that way. “How’s that?”

“Better. Unsettling, but better.”

The buzz of overhead drones urged me forward.

“We need to get inside. Stay behind me and block the drone’s sightline.” I strode forward, dragging James into the immigration line with me. “If they can’t detect my cooler temperature in the crowd, they’ll move on.”

James stood close to my back, his presence grounding the madness battling my mind.

“Why do you have drones after you?” he whispered.

“There was an incident.”

“I’m getting the impression your idea of an incident is a lot more dramatic than mine. A paper cut is an incident.”

My lips twitched around a fragile smile. “Our perspectives differ.”

I was up next in the retina scanner and passed through without trouble. One of the immigration officers smiled and said hello, likely thinking he was talking to Miss White and not a rogue synthetic. James filed through after me, but the scanner chimed an alarm.

“Please try again, sir.”

I glanced back and caught James’s anxious eyes. He mustered a weak smile, stepped back, and readied for another try. I could hear the drones and kept my gaze locked on James. He stepped forward. The scanner chimed again.

“Sir, if you’d like to step this way, we’ll have to do this manually.”

Flanked by two officials, James swung a glance my way, panic widening his eyes.

I turned to the officer who’d recognized me as Miss White. “He’s with me.”

“He’ll be through shortly. Please move along, Miss White.”

The background buzzing of the drones grew louder, until even James looked up. Whatever he saw transformed the panic in his eyes into fear.

I am #1001 and I will not be caught.

In the moment between one blink and the next, I plucked the pistol from the officer’s belt, flicked off the safety, set it to stun, pressed it to his chest, and fired. The recoil lurched up my arm as the officer fell backward and collapsed. Chaos erupted around me. People scattered, screams piercing the previously organized quiet. I pushed the influx of sensory input behind “cool control” and swung the gun around.

Run, run, run …

“Everybody get down.”

Some obeyed. Some ran. I aimed the gun at the officer on James’s right and fired, then shot the other, all within a few strides.

James had frozen and winced when I grabbed his coat. “Stay or come with me. Choose.”

The drones dove in. I flicked the gun off stun, zeroed all of my concentration onto the swarm, and fired. They moved fast, designed to ambush and overcome their targets. I shot five out of the air before they could open fire in unison. Their accuracy matched mine. No room for error. No mistakes. Chitec perfection.

I ignored the punch of bullets and what they did to my body, wiping the pain away as easily as I dismissed the errors.

“One Thousand—” James called.

“Go! Find the commander.”

When I looked again, James had gone, as had the immigration officials. The screams echoed far and wide. People scrambled away, terror contorting their faces. Was this what awaited the population of the nine systems when the synthetics turned on them?

Spinning on my heels, I broke into a run. Three drones were left and they followed, low and fast behind me. As I burst through the port’s retail zone, scattering alarmed people, the security alarms burst into their inevitable wailing. I tucked my chin in, pulled up the layout of Janus’s port, calculated a quicker route to pier fifteen, and ducked through a personnel door and into the maintenance corridors. The drones couldn’t follow, but they would alert security. Janus’s entire security force was about to come down on me if I didn’t get off the orbit station, fast.

Run, One Thousand And One. Run!

I dismissed the memory of my encounter with Hung, pushing all the unnecessary thoughts aside and locking them away for when I had time to decipher what it all meant. The raging pain of six bullet wounds throbbing throughout my body was a little more difficult to dismiss. Although I tried, stifling the data was a distraction I couldn’t afford.

I broke into a cargo area stacked high with crates and storage containers. On the other side, pier fifteen waited. Just a few more strides—

The impact slammed into me from the right, gathered me up, and threw me against a stack of crates hard enough to split them open and spill their contents. Pain sparked and twitched through me, sending a flood of sensory alerts surging through my thoughts, drowning me under data. A cool hand clamped around my throat and lifted me off my feet as though I weighed nothing.

I lifted my head, still fighting to clear my way through the overflow of information, and looked into the unblinking, mildly intrigued eyes of a casually dressed male synthetic.

“Chen Hung has declared you a rogue,” he said, voice cold and hard.

“Chen Hung is a lie.”

I kicked back against the crates, pushing into him, but instead of cracking my forehead into his nose, I found myself being swung around and dumped onto my back against the floor. He pinned me down, thighs fencing me in while his hands clamped around my wrists. Errors spiked my vision, distracting me from my purpose. Pain input bled through my control and leeched into my processes. I couldn’t fight the data and him at the same time.

“What number are you?” I asked.

His lips tightened into a shallow, predatory smile. “My name is Tarik. My number is irrelevant. My orders are to stop you.”

A pulseshot rang out. The bullet tore into the synthetic’s cheek and exploded through his jaw, whipping his head around and jerking him off me. I saw it all in perfect clarity: how his skin burst, how his synthetic blood spilled out of the severed conduits, and how his eyes still swiveled onto me.

Bren kicked Tarik off me and shot him at near point-blank range in the chest. It wouldn’t be enough. Even as Bren took my hand and pulled me to my feet, Tarik rose in jerky, broken motions.

“Don’t look back.” Bren’s steel-like grip was locked around my arm, holding me upright while he led me away.

I didn’t look back, just forward, through the service door, and out onto the dock, where the little shuttle and Doctor James Lloyd waited.

“My god,” James gasped. “You’re a mess.”

Bren got us in the air in under a minute. I didn’t know whether he had trouble gaining airspace clearance; I couldn’t see or hear much beyond the madness spilling through me. As soon as I was sprawled out on a foldout bunk, I shut down all unnecessary processes. James said something about helping me, but it didn’t matter. I closed my eyes and buried myself beneath the stream of data. Until I could filter it, there was no sense in fighting it. I let it happen; I fell into the stream, letting it wash over me and drag me under.

“You were pretty beaten up.” Commander Shepperd stood beside the bed, arms crossed, face stern. “And very lucky to have a Chitec technician with you. Doctor Lloyd didn’t leave your side until he was happy you were stable.”

Brendan paused, and when he next spoke, he’d lost some of his hardened fleet tone. “I’m glad to see you’re back with us.”

I ran a quick scan of my systems and found them acceptable; frayed in places, but I was already healing. I then focused on the commander standing beside the med bay bed. How he looked like Caleb. Older, of course, with something of a proud glean in his eye, but they shared the same bone structure that made the commander typically attractive, but Caleb somehow roguish. The commander’s startling white fleet uniform reminded me of how we’d met, with Starscream evading his warbird. He appraised me with a tired sigh while his heart beat a steady rhythm. Did he see his brother’s killer? Did he know? If he did, he was exceptionally calm.

“Thank you,” I said.

He nodded. “The last place they’ll look for you is in a fleet freighter. You’ll be safe enough here, for a few days.”

James entered the med bay as the commander continued. “Just try and stay out of sight and avoid interacting with the crew. They’re already curious.”

‘You can’t tell me you’re not curious,’ the memory came, fluttering through my thoughts with no regard for order. I mentally swatted the borrowed memories aside while the commander turned and strode out of the bay.

James stopped at my bedside and beamed. “I feel like I should salute him or something. How are you feeling?”

“I am—” I pushed up into a sitting position. “A male synthetic attacked me. There was too much data to process. I … I’m not sure what happened.”

The bed sheet slipped and pooled around my hips.

James’s gaze briefly dipped before he caught himself, cleared his throat, and took my face in his hands.

“What you’re experiencing, it was an early glitch, resolved long before my time at Chitec.” He tilted my head up and peered deeply into my eyes, turning my head slightly left then right in a purely clinical way. “We’ve had synthetics seizure under too much sensory input. It was fixed before they went on sale, but, as with everything else, you’re a little different.”

“The synthetic, he had a name.” I reached for any data entries on a synth known as Tarik, but memories flooded the forefront of my thoughts.

<fault>We are alike.<fault> More data spilled forward<fault>Run, One Thousand And One. Run!<fault> It kept coming, more and more, filing me up and driving out all other thoughts.

“I need to tell you something, but I can’t. I can’t!” I clamped my hands on my head. “Make the data stop.”

“If we were in my lab, or if I had my equipment—”

His voice, the deafening beat of his heart, the scrape of his clothes, his temperature and that of the room around us, the throb of the ship’s engines, the crew manifesto, dataprints, life junk—the data kept coming, feeding into me until I feared I was about to drown all over again.

“Try to block it.”

I need to tell you—Chen Hung is a synthetic!—but I can’t!

James crouched to eye level and tightened his hold on my face. “Look at me. Just me. My eyes. What color are they?”

I blinked through the sea of diagnostic information and fixed my gaze on his eyes. Data tumbled between us in a curtain of numbers. I winced and peered through the stream. “Brown. They’re brown.”

“Okay. How many eyelashes do you see?”

“Two hundred and forty two on your right eye.”

“Good, and my left?”

“Two hundred and twenty.”

“How many crew are on this ship?”

“Twelve.”

“And what is your number?”

“One Thousand And One.”

He smiled his kind smile and asked quietly, “How do you feel now?”

The data had subsided, pulled back like curtains before a performance. The streams still thrummed in the background, but now I could ignore it. “In control.”

“If it keeps happening, we’ll have to think of a way to get you fixed, but until then, try and stay focused. It’ll help block the influx of data.”

I searched his brown eyes and found them filled with honest concern.

“I have information, but I’m prevented from telling you. My protocols are blocking it. It’s right there.” I jabbed a finger into my temple. “Right there, James. And I can’t … I just can’t. Why is this happening to me?”

“I don’t know. You weren’t made like the others. I don’t even know if you were made from the same components. Chen Hung could have constructed you by hand.”

Chen Hung isn’t who he appears to be! My maker is a synthetic!

I touched James’s face, right at the corner of his lips, where his smile tucked into his cheek, but that smile faded beneath my fingertips, so I let my hand fall again.

“I found him,” I said. “Chen Hung. I got to him, but I couldn’t move. He made it so I can’t hurt him. But it’s all I want to do. I need to hurt him, James. I want to tell you why. I need to.” I curled my fingers into my palms and squeezed my hands into fists. “But I’m prohibited from doing so.”

“It sounds as though you’re following your own orders, but they’re clashing with existing protocols. That conflict would explain why you’re malfunctioning. I can help you, I think, with the right equipment and enough time.” He straightened and sighed. “Although, where we go from here, is anyone’s guess.” His pause was a heavy thing, laden with regrets. “At least we’re off Janus, I suppose.”

He’d been thinking of his sister. I too had regrets. A pang of discomfort knotted itself in my chest. Guilt, perhaps, though I wasn’t sure. I dismissed it along with all the other nonsense data smothering me.

“Commander Shepperd left some fleet sweats here for you,” James said, his tone still somber. “Your clothes were ruined.”

He bumped a loose fist against the end of the bed. “I remember the name now—Shepperd. Caleb Shepperd was Haley’s boyfriend before the accident, and guessing by the resemblance, the commander is his older brother?”

“Yes.”

I swung my legs over the bed and examined the raw wounds in my torso. James must have spent hours cleaning and repairing the bullet holes, thereby allowing my skin to regenerate.

“But there wasn’t a shuttle accident. Haley was killed.” Not by her father. No. By a synthetic imposter. Maybe I could write it down? “A pen, something to write on, quickly.”

James searched the med bay for a pen and touchpad and then held them out. I snatched them from his hands, and froze.

“No! No!” I threw the pad to the floor. It clattered and skidded halfway across the med bay. “It’s here, right here, in my head—my processes—but I can’t get it out.”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I want to help you. Maybe the commander can help somehow?”

I sighed and poked at one of the impact wounds, studying the pain data as it trickled through my vision. At least that data flowed freely enough without choking me.

“Is that how you knew to contact the commander? You remembered him from when you were Haley?”

“No.” I lifted my gaze.

James averted his eyes and awkwardly scooped up the sweats, handing them to me.

“Chitec sent me to kill Caleb.”

“Chitec did? Who there would do that? Why?”

I took the clothes and dressed while James wandered about the med bay, deliberately facing away from me.

“I’m prohibited from telling you who. Caleb was smuggling Chitec property. I wasn’t supposed to exist, so no one would miss me while I was sent on their errand. I developed a fault and …” The memories flitted through my vision, swarming like the drones had. Memories of Caleb, of his crimes and mine.

“And?” James prodded at a few datascreens, idly interested in the ship’s array of medical equipment.

“And I failed.”

He lifted his gaze. “But you said—”

“I killed Caleb because I wanted to, not because I was ordered to. He helped me remember who I was. I remembered Haley—remembered it all. How he’d watched her die. I killed him, expecting to feel complete.”

“But you didn’t?” When I didn’t reply, James rubbed his thumb across his lips, deep in thought. “Revenge doesn’t fix anything. It’s no wonder you came into my lab broken.”

‘Maybe you’re the only one who isn’t broken.’

I reached back to braid my hair, hiding the quiet tears brimming my eyes. I didn’t know whether I cried for Caleb, or for me, or for the girl who thought her father had killed her. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying. Brendan had told me that crying was a symptom of another problem. But I was synthetic. Crying was redundant.

I worked my fingers through my hair and pulled the braid tight. Concentrating on this simple act helped focus my thoughts and drag them away from a past that couldn’t help me.

With my thoughts firmly under control, I faced James. “I saved Commander Shepperd’s life. He’s the type of man to remember. He’s a valuable asset.”

James’s eyes narrowed. “Is that how you see people? As assets or hindrances?”

“Yes. Chen Hung—” I tripped up on his name, swallowed, and tried again. “Chen Hung told Haley that everyone is an asset.”

Run, One Thousand And One. Run!

Closing my eyes, I blocked it all out. Life had been easier when I didn’t have memories to distract me, easier when my orders dictated how to react, where to go, what to do.

I am #1001. I followed orders. Now I don’t know what to do.

“I’ll help you.”

My eyes fluttered open.

“I will help you, Haley.” James’s tentative smile warmed his bright face.

“I’m One Thousand And One.”

“Yes.” His smile broadened, with a touch of sympathy. “I suppose you are.”

Chapter Nine: Caleb

“Why am I not surprised?” Ade Cande leaned in her doorway, dragging her hungry gaze all over me.

I had no idea what time it was, just that it was still dark and I wasn’t yet drunk enough.

The settlement called Irony wasn’t much: one street lined with squat, red-dirt houses, currently empty of miners as they celebrated their most recent haul around the campfire. The mines were a good walk away, but the air in town held that same metallic aftertaste. I had no idea how Ade stomached it. I’d been on their iron-soaked world for less than a day and I was already aching to be back-in-black—if I could get my fuckin’ ship back in the air.

I leaned my forearm on the doorframe, bringing me close enough to see crazy sparkle in her blue eyes. “I came to see if I could talk my way into your place and maybe find the remote trigger.”

She crossed her arms and tilted her head. “And how do you reckon you’re goin’ to talk your way in?”

“With my silver tongue and irresistible wit?”

“I see. Carry on then.”

“Well, that was er …” I scratched my cheek. “That was it.”

“Shepperd.” She shook her head. “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, and I’ll dump your body down a mine shaft.”

Apparently, I had a soft spot for strong-willed psychotic women. Or maybe that should be a hard spot, because having her this close reminded me of how I’d last seen her: sprawled naked across her shuttle’s bunk, high, drunk, and deliciously sated.

“I have no intention of fooling you.” I lowered my voice and loaded it with intent. “In the interest of full disclosure, I just told you exactly why I’m here.”

She smiled the kind of sympathetic smile reserved for idiots and assholes. “You’re a real charity case, like a lost puppy. The kind with rabies that should be shot.”

It was a good thing she needed me, or else she’d likely be the one doing the shooting.

I shouldn’t be doing this while off-my-head drunk. “You wouldn’t shoot me, Ade.…”

She snorted and looked me over more carefully, taking her time, remembering the last time we’d met—or so her lazy smile suggested. Before I’d high-tailed it off her shuttle, taking her credits with me, we’d had the kind of strenuous and delicious fun two consenting adults could have.

She glanced over her shoulder, into her single-story dwelling.

If she had company, it would make my plan to get her naked all the more difficult.

Play nice, I reminded myself.

“I’ve just gotten out of Asgard, thanks to you. I have a dubious second-in-command, who half the time, I wager, is imagining all the ways she’d like me to suffer, or—Well, anyway, let’s just say there’s some tension there. I could really do with some no-strings, simple company.”

“Did you just call me simple?”

“Erm.” Shit. “No?”

She raised both eyebrows. “I got burned by you.”

“Honey, we all get burned in the black. Chalk it up to experience and let’s move on.”

Her tight smile tucked her lips into her cheeks. “You’re all kinds of philosophical when you’re drunk, huh?”

“You were a pirate when I left you in the black. You can’t tell me you didn’t have your beautiful blue eyes on my ship the whole time you were sweet-talking me. You’re just sore I fucked you over first.”

“Is that right?” She nodded slowly. “Starscream? That bucket of junk? She’s more trouble than she’s worth.”

That’s my baby. And Ade had no fuckin’ idea what that little ship was capable of. “Trouble, huh? Just like me?”

“Something like that.” Her lips twitched. My charm was squeezing through the chinks in her armor.

“I had to take you out of the game, just for a few days while I blasted out of there.” I touched the collar of her leather coat. She inhaled sharply. That’d be her heart skipping. “So, I left you in the black? It ain’t no different to what you’ve done to others. You had enough life support to last until someone breezed by and picked you up, obviously, because you’re here. And looking exceptionally stunning as an iron guard, I might add.”

She slammed the door in my face.

I must be losing my touch. I needed that fucking bomb off my ship and soon. Her personal vendetta was screwing with my schedule.

I sighed, threw my gaze high, stared into the russet night sky, and prayed for the fucking universe to give me a break. When no answer came, I shoved my weary self away from the door. I’d have to drag my ass back to Starscream, where there was no chance of sex, and no alcohol.

“Cale …” Ade’s voice cut through the quiet and pulled me up short.

She strode with purpose, hand tucked in her long coat pocket, chin up, and eyes bright as if she owned the fucking street. Maybe she did. The red-tinged nightlight flared through the deep reds in her hair. Every inch the fantasy, she was too damn pretty to be stuck in this mining settlement. As a pirate, she’d had a ship and a crew. I couldn’t imagine she’d given that up by choice. What I’d seen of KP-92 wasn’t exactly inspiring.

“You know”—I tucked my hand into my pocket—“if you didn’t need me, I’d wonder if you were about to make good on your threat to ki—”

My assumption abruptly ended when she brought her hand up—too slowly for a slap—slipped her fingers into my hair, and yanked me into the kind of kiss that, in some systems, would get you arrested for assault. Couple the invasive thrusts of her tongue with how she slid her hand down my back and cupped my ass, and it took about three seconds for me to catch on. Thoughts of the shit I’d had to deal with promptly vanished beneath her rough groping. The fact that she was already fired up had me instantly hard and hungry. I wasn’t even aware she’d backed me up until I stumbled against the wall of someone’s house. She tasted like the alcohol I’d been drinking all night—too sweet and slightly metallic.

“I hate you.…” she panted, molding every inch of her tight body against mine. “After what you did to me, I should kill you.”

She tore my shirt from my pants and drove her hands up my chest.

Holy shit. I’d forgotten how she ran scolding hot and freezing cold, with no warm-up in between. Fucking Ade was like charming a cobra; I was just as likely to get bit as screwed. I worked her leather waistcoat open, pulling at the ridiculous amount of unnecessary buckles and ties until I finally had my hands on the smooth curve of her waist. No weapons.

Savoring the touch of her bare skin, I held her still, just for a few exquisite seconds of calm before the storm hit. And hit she would.

She clasped my face on her hands. “I hate that I let you win. I hate you, Shepperd.”

It wasn’t hate dilating her pupils. Hate didn’t have her pressed against all the best parts of me. She rubbed her thigh against my cock and yanked all my thoughts right there.

“I ain’t exactly fond of you either.”

I took her hand from my face and guided it to where she’d know just how much I didn’t like her right back. A shudder of pleasure rolled through me. I needed this. Needed it so badly I could almost let it happen.

She smiled against my lips and darted her tongue out, leading my mouth on a chase to capture hers. I growled out a warning, clamped hold of her hips, and switched positions, pinning her back against the wall. She bowed into me, pliable and luscious. She’d been an animal in the sack—all nails and teeth and daggers. She liked her daggers in places weapons weren’t designed to be. Some of her kinky shit was too rich even for my blood, although I’d quite happily get lost in her madness all over again if it meant forgetting.

She wrapped a leg around my thigh, pulling me in so close that I couldn’t stop myself from grinding against her.

“Not here …” Lust had wrecked my voice, turning it gravelly.

“Where?”

“My ship.”

I nipped at her lip, her chin, her neck, and eased back so I could get my hand inside her panties. Her need-soaked eyes locked on to mine and urged me on. I worked my fingers over her clit while she rocked against my hand. Her short, sharp breaths burned against my cheek.

Fuck fleet, fuck Fran, fuck the Candes, fuck it all.

Right here, right now, nothing mattered but the feel of Ade, wet and ready.

I pushed closer, moving with her, needing to feel her. “My ship—we won’t be disturbed.”

Her whispers tickled my neck. At this rate, I wouldn’t make it back to Starscream. I had to stop. As much fun as a quick fuck in someone’s yard would be, I wanted more. Needed more. I pulled my hand back, but she clutched my wrist and growled—fucking growled.

“My ship,” I repeated with the kind of self-control I didn’t know I possessed.

“Yes. Yes!”

I kissed her, slow and hard. I was taking what I could, while I could. “Good.”

We made it back to Starscream, but I wouldn’t get much farther than the hold. Ade wrenched off my shirt, popping a few buttons, and then she was on me all over again. Lips, teeth, tongue, all finding the most deliciously sensitive parts of me. I had to prize her off to pull the hold’s door’s lever, and even then she had me bent over the control box with a fuck load of knobs and switches digging into my ass.

“New cargo, Captain?”

Ade froze at the sound of Fran’s crystal clear voice echoing through the hold. The door slammed shut with a resounding boom.

Sprawled half naked over the controls, I stole a languished kiss from Ade’s lips right before she saw the truth in my eyes and recoiled with a hiss. Her fears were confirmed when Fran stepped out from behind the Candes’ cargo, pistol in hand and aimed true at Ade’s chest.

“What is this?” Ade demanded, shrugging her clothes back on.

If Ade’s semi-naked state aroused Fran, she didn’t show it. My second-in-command was all cold-hearted business.

“This, sweetheart, is what happens when you fuck with a fixer.” Fran tapped the cargo beside her. “You put a bomb on Starscream.” She clicked her tongue. “Bit of advice: don’t ever mess with a fixer’s ship. They take it real personal-like.”

I slid off the control pedestal, scooped up my shirt, strode in a wide arc around Ade, and stopped beside Fran. “It’s against the law to fly with primed explosives, didn’t yah know?”

Fran cast me a sidelong glance. “Took your time.”

I snorted and held out a hand. “Almost didn’t make it at all.”

She handed over the pistol.

Ade tugged her waistcoat closed and crossed her arms. Her glower could have set the world on fire. “Let me out of this tin can now, and there won’t be any retribution from the family.”

“Let me think—no.” I flicked the safety off the pistol. “This is how it is. You are my insurance should any of you Cande fuckers get any ideas about blowing me, my second, or my ship into itty bitty pieces.”

Her snarl returned. “Caleb, when the family hears about this—”

“Captain Shepperd. I think we’ve established we aren’t on first name bases.”

She ground her teeth. “Is my job so damn difficult that you have to run away with your tail between your legs? Cowards, both of you.”

I strode closer. “You put a bomb on Starscream. You crossed the fuckin’ line.”

“Pudrete en el infierno,” she spat. Spanish. Great. Another one.

I frowned, about to demand that she translate that, but then Fran spat out a single word: “Bruja.”

“Puta!” Ade then spouted off a string of Spanish without taking a breath.

“Okay!” I barked. “You two can sling insults all fuckin’ night, but first, Fran, get Starscream off this iron-soaked rock.”

“On it, Captain.”

“And Ade, you’ve now been kidnapped. Don’t do anything stupid, and we won’t purge you to the black like we intend to do with your sensitive cargo.” I’d already had my hands all over her and knew she was unarmed, but she’d fight; the sting in my jaw from her earlier punch testified to that. “Do I need to tie you up?”

She rolled her eyes. “No.”

“Welcome to Starscream.” As I headed for the personnel doors I called back, “Don’t fuck with the fixer and we’ll get along just fine.”

“We should commandeer the freighter,” Fran said.

I nearly fell out of my seat. “Are you fucking high?”

She leaned back in her flight chair, kicked her boots onto the dash, and started to file her nails with a tool designed for shaving metal off repair panels.

“We could do it,” she replied, artfully avoiding my reference to her habit.

“Why would we?”

“For those people back on that rock. They don’t deserve to starve just because Chitec fixes the price of iron.”

I kept a straight face, wondering when my didn’t-give-a-fuck second-in-command had turned into a righteous do-gooder. Oh yeah, fleet.

That rock—KP-92—loomed low in our obs window, sitting like a red marble inside an ocean of black.

“Starscream’s not a fuckin’ charity.”

I should put that on a plaque and hang it in the hold.

I checked the proximity sensors. We were drifting just beyond the pull of KP’s atmosphere. There’d been little activity to suggest that the Cande family were missing Ade. Before the alarm was raised, I needed to figure out what to do with the pirate in the cargo hold, and do that whilst not entirely sober. Fran and me had already agreed to jettison the cargo and pin it with a steer-clear warning flag. The Candes could clean up their own crap. Ade, I could use, especially if keeping her sweet meant keeping the family off my back. Though I’d have to offer her something pretty sweet to stop her from scratching my eyes out.

Fran scraped her nails with the file, back and forth, back and forth. “It wouldn’t be difficult. I can pilot a fleet freighter. I know fleet’s comm’s codes. We could sneak right up on them without them ever knowing we’re there. A freighter has a dozen airlocks and hardly any security. They rely on their proximity sensors and early warning systems to defend themselves. We have the codes and Starscream has a don’t-look-here device, so we won’t show up as much more than a bit of rock. We latch on, get in, and take the bridge. Easy.”

“You know the codes, huh?” Thanks for reminding me you’re fleet. “Why not call on ahead? Ask your fleet buddies if they’d like to hand over their goods for the poor folk on some unnamed rock, and we’ll all get pissed ‘round the campfire, hold hands, and sing songs?”

Finally, she flicked her emerald glare to me. “Are you going to consider it or keep sulking because you didn’t get to dip your dick in some Cande pussy?”

My balls stirred just thinking about Ade clutching at my junk. I shifted in my seat, knowing Fran would see me squirming and get pissed off with me for getting hard while she was talking business.

“She’s a riot in the sack. Do you think she’d be up for it?”

“You mean the pity fuck you tried for?”

I leaned back in my chair and turned it toward Fran. “The plan was to get her back to the ship, by any means necessary. She jumped me. I tried real hard to fend her off … real fuckin’ hard.”

“Uh-huh. I can see it now, the Shepperd hard-done-by eyes.” She dropped her voice and mimicked my tone, “I’m just a messed up smuggler lookin’ for some fuckin’ company,” and went back to filing her nails, but this time with sharper strokes.

I scratched at my cheek, slightly disturbed and curiously aroused by her accurate impression.

“I tell you what I think, Captain, since you asked. I think out here on the fringes of the nine, you hear things about some of the women pirates.”

“What things?”

“Like maybe they aren’t all human. Like maybe they have teeth in places where it matters most.”

“This ain’t the first time I’ve been with Ade. I reckon I’d remember shit like that.”

“Things change.”

Well that thought threw cold water all over my hot fantasy. “You’re a twisted bitch.”

She smirked. “And you’re delusional if you think she’s going to get within two feet of you without trying to cut your balls off.”

I pressed my lips together and watched Fran file her fucking nails. Even though she looked the part—hair a tussled mess, smudge of grease on her cheek, flight suit hanging open to reveal a plain white top—she still had that holier than thou attitude. I should have seen it from day one. My own goddamn brother had the same stuck-up fleet airs and graces. Now I saw the truth in Fran; it stared me right in the face. I’d known she was better than me, better than this fucked-up smuggler’s life, and I’d ignored it, mostly to get inside her panties—at least to begin with. After I’d seen what she could do, I’d come to respect her as a pilot. I‘d known then, deep down, and had ignored my instincts.

“You really think you’re better than me, huh?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “I know I am.”

“Is that why you wouldn’t fuck me?”

She stopped filing and arched an eyebrow. “You really want to know?”

“This sexual tension—” I shrugged. “It’s an unhealthy working environment.”

“Captain, I assure you, what’s between us, it’s not sexual tension. It’s your dominance issues. I’m better than you. Better pilot, better mechanic, better in every way, and you’re fragile male ego can’t handle it.”

She was probably right.

“Yeah, but I beat you at poker. Every. Time.” She’d also be dead if I hadn’t saved her ass from the bounty hunter on Mimir, but I wasn’t aiming to win this fight.

She fluttered her lashes and smiled. “I let you win at poker, at everything.”

“Two years.” I leaned forward. “If you’re better in every way, why not fuck me and get your kicks that way. I know your standards. They’re pretty low.”

She tossed her file onto the dash and raked a hand through her hair and down the back of her neck. “The second you got your way, you’d have ditched me at the next port. I had to string you along.”

Her gaze didn’t quite meet mine.

I remembered her words on Mimir, when she’d come around from her phencyl trip and had realized I hadn’t left her when we both knew I should have.

“A better undercover fleet officer would have gotten the goods in six months. You dragged it out for two years before Mimir, when I’m guessing your commander had enough of your stalling.”

She smiled brightly. “You’re a surprisingly suspicious bastard.”

I smiled right back. “You want to know what I think, honey? I think you like it here. You like this ship, the freedom in the black, and you maybe even like me.”

I dropped back in my seat. She snorted and muttered something in Spanish. I was right.

I continued. “And my grubby life, my dirty little ship, me? I don’t fit with your clean fleet rules and organized regulations. I know, I’ve been there, Fleet Captain, remember? You wouldn’t fuck me because you were getting too close and you knew it. You kept on the right side of that line and told yourself everything would be fine if you didn’t cross it.”

She blinked lazily and stood. “I’m going to check on the crazy pirate roaming the ship. Tell yourself whatever you have to in order to get it up, Shepperd.”

“So what happened after Ganymede, Fran?” I called out after her. “Fleet crawling all over that moon? It frightened you. You came face to face with the truth of what you are and didn’t want to go back.…”

I faced the controls and smiled. “Reckon that’s why you crossed your line and finally got down and dirty with me.”

Fran slammed the hatch behind her.

I could spend hours riling her. I’d make it my new favorite hobby. She was right though, about a lot of things, with the freighter being one of them. We could board it and steal it. I was way ahead of her on that one. That fleet freighter would have enough sellable supplies to keep Starscream flying in the black for over a year. I certainly wasn’t about to hand it over to the Candes or their little mining community. I was many things—dubious captain, asshole smuggler, bastard thief, first-rate fixer—but even I had my limits. A pirate? Never that. But I had my reasons for breaking my rules. Nine reasons, in fact. The Fenrir Nine could use a fleet freighter. They had the tech to disguise its signature and make it look like an insignificant tug, and they could sure use a ship that size to hide sizable weapons caches. If I wanted back in their good books, a gift-wrapped freighter would be a surefire way of getting in. Plus, they paid well and didn’t try to fuck me over like every other bastard in the nine systems.

My only real problem came from the fact that I trusted the Cande pirate in my hold more than my second-in-command.

Ade hung up the call to KP’s surface. “It’s done. I’m officially on your crew until the job is complete.”

She tossed the comms unit back to me with a scowl that could strip paint.

“The Candes won’t retaliate as long as you deliver the freighter.”

“This is just business, Ade. Don’t take it personally.” I tucked the comms in my flight suit pocket and leaned back against the hold’s bulkhead.

She gave her short red bangs a flick out of her eyes. “I got you out of Asgard.”

By the time this was over, I’d have made an enemy of her and the Candes. I already had an ocean of assholes after me—the CEO of Chitec, a drug lord on Ganymede, and all of fleet, to name a few. Now I could add a pirate and her family to the list, although I’d have preferred to keep the Candes sweet. They definitely wouldn’t be happy when I turned their freighter over to the Fenrir Nine.

“And I’m getting you a freighter,” I said. “Seems like we’re even.”

Some of the fire faded from her eyes. She stalked to the crates and leaned a hip against their edges. “What did you do to get yourself in Asgard in the first place?”

I dropped my gaze and scuffed my shoe against the grated floor. “Wrong place, wrong time.”

What had happened with Haley—with the synth—was off limits to Ade Cande, and to anyone.

“Rumor is Chitec finally caught up with you smuggling their guns.”

I huffed a small laugh. “Rumor is you’ve got teeth between your legs.”

One fine auburn eyebrow arched high.

“It’d be useful for bastards like you if I did.” She held my gaze while her own turned inquisitive. “I heard some other things too … about Fran.”

I didn’t reply but didn’t hide the truth from my face either. “The nine systems love to gossip.”

“But it ain’t all gossip, is it?”

I should have laughed her off and left the conversation at that. Maybe it was the remnants of the alcohol loosening my tongue, or maybe I just wanted to talk to someone who hated fleet as much as I did.

“There are some issues between Fran and me.” I shoved away from the bulkhead and joined Ade by the crates. “But if it weren’t for her reaching out to you, I’d still be in Asgard.”

I rested my forearms on the crates and drew in a deep breath.

“Maybe if it weren’t for her, you never would have been in Asgard?”

I smiled and bowed my head. Ade was crazy-sharp, as well as crazy-beautiful.

“Maybes are about as fucking useful as what ifs.”

“Then why keep her around?”

I glanced at the closed personnel door. Fran was likely on the bridge. She couldn’t hear us. “I almost didn’t. I shouldn’t …”

“If she’s fleet, you should leave her on the next rock and be done with her.”

I still might. I might have thought Ade was trying to badmouth my second to get between us, if she weren’t right about all of it.

“Do pirates have any loyalty?” I asked.

She thought about it, then propped an elbow on the top crate and smiled. “No.”

“Fran might be fleet, but she loves Starscream almost as much as I do. As long as she’s behind the controls, her loyalty is with this ship. And this ship”—I flicked my fingers, encompassing the hold—“is mine. I know Fran.”

“Are you sure about that, Captain?”

“Fuck no.” But it had sounded good.

Ade sent her gaze around Starscream’s hold. Folks who lived in the black knew what it meant to survive on the edge and how ships like Starscream meant more than credit or status.

When she faced me again, fresh admiration brightened her eyes. “And what about the freighter? You think she’s going to let you steal a fleet freighter full of cargo and hand it over to the family?”

“No. That’s why you’ll be boarding with me, and she’ll be staying behind.”

Ade lips quirked into a genuine smile. “Now that plan, I like.”

I’d known she would.

“You’re an ex-pirate. I couldn’t think of anyone better to help me take a freighter, and there’s the fact that my choices for backup are pretty fucking limited.” I’d guessed she’d want nothing more than to be back doing what she loved most. She missed the black, just like I did when grounded. We weren’t so different. “What are you doing as an iron guard, Ade? Guarding some mine tailings and a bunch of miners when you could be raiding luxury cruisers in the black?”

Her bright smile faltered.

“We got boarded by fleet.” She picked at the crate wrappings with a fingernail. “They said we were smuggling refugees. We weren’t. But it didn’t matter. They were looking for a fight. We gave them one.”

I hadn’t imagined the tiny fracture in her voice. “And lost?”

“Yeah. I got away in a stinger, but my crew—my ship. I watched from the shuttle as fleet fired two missiles.” She swallowed. “Killed all on board in seconds. They let me go so I could report back to the family.”

I’d done the same as fleet captain. Pirates were routinely executed on sight, and with good reason. They were known for butchering crews and stripping their catches bare. Pirates were about the only thing I ran from in the black—them and my past. Desperate people, in desperate times, did desperate things.

She hissed in air through her teeth, held her breath, and then sighed. “The family demanded I stay on KP as an iron guard. No more pirating, just red rock and red skies and red dust. The food tastes like metal, the air smells like metal. I’m sick of iron, Cale. I need to do more to get back at fleet.”

She wanted to escape. I’d figured as much and knew I had her on my side. In fact, I was counting on it, at least while we both wanted the same thing.

“But I don’t trust your second-in-command.” Ade leaned close and whispered, “She’s fleet, and they’re all the same.”

I nodded. “There’s no quicker way to get yourself killed than trusting someone in the black. You’ll do right to remember that.”

“I reckon a smuggler taught me the same when he screwed me, cleared out my credit account, and left me adrift.”

“Sounds like a decent guy.”

She laughed lightly and easily. “Reckon he tells himself that so he can sleep at night.”

I found myself more relaxed with her than I had with my own fucking second-in-command. Something was very wrong with this picture.

I offered Ade my hand. “Truce, ‘til the job is done.”

She took my hand in hers and shook. “Truce. I’ll get the ship schematics sent up and confirm she’s on schedule. I’m looking forward to doing business with you, Captain.”

She wouldn’t be smiling when I stole her freighter right out from under her.

We went over the boarding operation. The plan was simple enough, and while there were only three of us and a dozen freighter crew, we had the element of surprise and knowledge on our side, as well as a few tricks up Starscream’s sleeves, and mine.

I knew I was in trouble when Fran followed me off the bridge. She’d stewed in silence after I’d told her she was staying on the ship. Silence from her meant she was thinking of ways to make me pay.

She entered my cabin behind me, closed the door, and stood, blocking it, with her arms crossed and lips clamped tight. This wasn’t going to go well. I tugged a few ragged items of clothing from a rack, including a hood to cover my face when we boarded the freighter, and dumped it on my bunk. I didn’t want the crew recognizing me; I was supposed to be in Asgard, not raiding freighters.

Fran’s gaze burned a hole into my back. If she was expecting me to explain why I’d chosen to leave her behind, she’d be waiting a long fuckin’ time.

“You’re going in with a Cande over me?”

And there it was. “She’s a pirate. We’re doing pirating. Do the math.”

In the quiet of my cabin, I heard her teeth grinding. Drawing in a deep breath, I braced an arm over my bunk and turned my head. Anger pinched her eyes and had set her lips in a firm snarl. A better captain would have told her to go cool her jets before she said, or did, something she’d regret.

“You lied to me for two years,” I said. “You called fleet in on Mimir. You’re the reason I’ve just spent a cycle in that Asgard hell, wondering if I was done for, or if I had to live like an animal to survive.” I pushed off the bunk and faced her straight on. “I’d have to be fucking insane to take you with me to steal a fleet freighter.”

Her lips turned down. She blinked slowly and looked away. “You’re not an idiot, Cale. The things we’ve done, the runs we’ve made, the drugs, the guns … I could have dragged your ass in to fleet at any time. Even now, if I was fleet to the core, I’d be reporting this job back to command.”

“Are you?” I asked.

She glared.

I lifted my chin, crossed the tiny cabin in two strides, and backed her up against the door. “Your words mean nothing to me. They’re just words, Francisca. I can’t trust you. The truth is, I trust a fuckin’ pirate more than I trust you, and that’s never going to change.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re making a mistake.”

She breathed hard through her nose.

I braced my arm against the door beside her head. “Why did you get me out of Asgard?”

Her lashes fluttered as she fought not to blink. This close to her, I could see her struggling to hold my stare and how tiny lines undermined her slight smile. She was a liar, and a dangerous one at that.

“I …” Her voice failed. She licked her lips and left them slightly parted, sending my thoughts careening off course and toward old, well-trodden territory. Thoughts of tasting her muddied my aggression, twisting it toward lust. I almost pulled back and would have backed off had she not lifted her chin, brushing her lips against mine. It was a promise, not a kiss; the kind of wickedly gentle tease I wouldn’t have expected from her, which was why I didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

Her careful eyes searched mine, waiting for permission? A curl of anticipation licked low, shortening my breath. This was a game—a fucking game to win me over. I knew it and didn’t care.

A crooked smile slanted across her lips. She leaned into me. Her warm, wet mouth touched mine. Her tongue teased inside and what little restraint I had fell away. I curled my arm around her back and pulled her in so close that she was all I knew and all I could think about.

Fuck gentle.

I sank my free hand into her hair, closed my fingers, held her still, and kissed her like I hated her. Fucked up need had my cock raging hard in seconds. This woman was fleet. She was everything I hated about the nine systems: the laws designed to stifle the people and the rules that shackled us all. I nipped at her neck and tugged her flight suit off her shoulders. She writhed against me and had her hands under my shirt before sinking them over my ass and yanking me against her. I pushed in close, briefly losing my mind as the friction of her body against mine pulsed heated pleasure all the way through me. I fought with her pants, managed to slip them over her hips, and hooked my fingers into her obscenely lacy panties.

“Why did you get me out of Asgard?” I breathed the words against her mouth, mixing them with hot, broken kisses.

“Because”—her fingers tugged at my fly—“you were right.”

Pants open, she had her hand around my cock, with her thumb teasing the wet tip like her tongue might. I forgot the question, the answer, all of it. She kissed my mouth—hungry and rough—then worked her hand the way she knew I liked it. I lost myself in the numbing pleasure, in the taste of her, in the feel of her. I lost myself in her breaths in my ear and in the curve of her back as she arched into me. Fuck, if she didn’t stop, I would—

I knocked her hand aside with a groan, tugged her panties down, slipped my hands under her ass, and lifted her at just the right angle to ease myself deep inside. I went in slow, but didn’t need to. She was slick and tight and so ready.

“Fuck.”

“You were right.…” she whispered again, her breath cool on my neck. She clutched at my back, hugging me close as I rocked my hips, building a rhythm. The feel of her holding me, the ripples of pleasure, her lavender smell—those were the only thoughts I wanted.

Right about what? I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything. With every thrust, the door rattled and her breathing sawed against my ear. My heart hammered, rapid and broken.

“Faster,” she growled, nails digging in. “Harder, hijo de tu puta madre.”

Oh, sweet fuck. I smiled against her neck. “Quit with the Spanish if you want this to last.”

She clamped a hand on my ass and urged me into a pace that suited her. “Dios mío.”

Building pleasure coiled like a spring about to break. Teeth gritted, I tried to hold back and failed. Sweet nothingness had hold of me now, and I let it swallow me down. Fran sank her nails in, arched back hard, and groaned through her teeth, staring at me through half-closed lashes, her plump lips parted.

“Yo te odio,” she hissed, then stilled and let out a tight groan as her orgasm sent spasms through her.

I pounded deep, closed my eyes, and let the blissful fucking ecstasy ride right over me. Pleasure funneled to a point, dragging me along with it until everything burst apart in those few precious seconds where nothing and nobody mattered. I tried to cling to those timeless moments, but all too soon reality flooded back in, bringing me back to the now, where I had Fran up against my cabin door, both of us slick with sweat and sex, both spent and breathing hard.

Fuck, I’d needed that.

I braced against the door and pulled back enough to see Fran’s flushed cheeks and hooded eyes.

“This doesn’t change a damn thing,” I said, voice splintered.

She clamped her lips together and frowned. “You think I fucked you to get my way?”

I smiled. “I know you did.”

I kissed her and tasted the frustration in her all over again. Her kiss wasn’t nearly as languid as those she’d used to try and persuade me she was still on my side. I’d take them though.

“Any time you want to vent your frustration on me, I’ll happily oblige,” I said.

“You think that’s what this was about?”

I was still crowding her body against the door, which meant I felt exactly how she’d stiffened.

“A pity fuck.” Given a little time, I’d be hard and ready all over again. “You needed it.”

She went from domesticated to rabid so damn fast I didn’t see the slap coming. The burn of her open palm surged through my cheek, dumping my semi-languid sexed-up thoughts right out of my head. She punched her open palms into my chest and shoved me back hard enough for me to stagger into the wall.

“You’re a real piece of work.” She tugged her clothes back into place with angry snatches. “The sort of lowlife bastard who thrives in the black. You’re beneath me, Caleb Shepperd.”

I tucked my junk away and rubbed my flaming cheek. “And I’m perfectly happy beneath you, Fran. Any time you need it, honey.”

“Take your fucking pirate on the job and don’t come squealing back to me when she tries to stab you in the back.” She stormed from my cabin and slammed the door shut behind her.

If she thought she could use sex to manipulate me, she really hadn’t been paying attention during these last few years. It was a cheap move coming from her, but it told me exactly how unsettled she was, which was good. She needed to know who the captain of this ship was. As a bonus, I’d gotten one of the best fucks I’d had in months—exactly what I’d needed right before I pulled off an attack on a fleet freighter. And that slippery curl of guilt weaving a thread of unease through me? Fuck that.

Chapter Ten: #1001

“We’re just passing KP-Ninety-Two, Commander,” one of the freighter’s crew announced. “There is some uncharted minor debris, but we’re navigating around it without any issues. Approximate jump gate arrival time is zero-one-hundred.”

Commander Shepperd thanked his crewman and went back to his control panel, while I drifted along the fringes of the spacious bridge. On the vast proximity sensor screen, I spotted the debris the ensign had reported, as well as the planet, its gravitational zone, and countless other observational readouts. The bridge crew consisted of six men and woman, while the remaining six were about the ship, checking cargo and running maintenance. During our trip, I’d watched them all from afar, absorbing their professionalism and fleet obedience. Commander Shepperd ran a tight ship and wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. He had the respect of his crew, which was not an easy achievement for a young commander.

He saw me watching him and straightened. “Ensign, notify me when we’re inside the jump gate zone.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Bren caught my eye as he left the bridge. I followed him out and found him waiting for me. “Commander.”

“Walk with me?” He posed it as a question, not an order. I fell into step beside him. “Your young Doctor Lloyd is a bright kid. We could use someone like him.”

“James is the reason I’m here. The Chitec board members had me scheduled for decommissioning. He saved me, although he did have his own motives.”

Bren listened as he strode beside me, his chin up, gaze ahead. “I wanted to speak with you about what happened on Mimir.”

I stayed quiet, and in doing so drew Bren’s gaze to me.

“When fleet destroyed the warehouses from orbit, I watched it happen,” he said. “They killed over five hundred people that day. The order was to destroy the weapons caches, but that wasn’t the real reason. Fleet was sending the Fenrir Nine a message.”

“The Fenrir Nine?”

“There are forces working against fleet, undermining the laws that hold the nine systems together. Command likes to call them rebels, but they’re more than that. The Nine aren’t a band of troublemakers. They’re a highly organized group of influential people, and fleet isn’t sure who they are or from where they operate. When they strike, fleet is always caught unawares. They have sophisticated technology and consistently outmaneuver command.”

“To what end?” I asked. It hadn’t escaped my attention that he had referred to fleet as them, excluding himself.

“Fleet aren’t sure.” Bren stopped midstride and faced me. “My brother was connected to the Nine, and that’s why fleet went after Caleb with undue force.”

I held his stare. “Chitec ordered fleet to apprehend him.”

“Yes, he believed so, and so do I. It would appear Chitec has substantial influence over fleet. Caleb-Joe tried to warn me, but I couldn’t see it. And then Mimir happened and events spiraled out of control. Fleet picked me up, ran me through the meat grinder for associating with smugglers, and put me on suspension. I lost track of Caleb and his ship for a time. His second in command, Francisca Franco, reappeared a few cycles ago on KP-ninety-two.”

He doesn’t know he’s dead. “The mining settlement we’re currently passing?”

“Yes. She reached out to the Candelario family. I requested this freighter run knowing it would bring me into the Svartalfheim system and closer to Francisca. Fleet were happy to send me out here and wash their hands of me.” He sighed. “One Thousand And One, I have to tell you something of importance.” He swallowed. “You’re reading all manner of warnings coming off me right now, aren’t you?”

“Yes. You’re either lying or about to.”

“I’m not lying. I just need you to understand that some things are not what they appear to be, and I hope to have your support when the time comes.”

“I don’t have allegiances, Commander. I analyze and act accordingly in any given scenario.”

He frowned. “That’s not exactly what I was hoping to hear.”

“You are an asset to me. I will support you for as long as that is the case.”

His lips parted in a silent, exasperated expression. “Well, then, I suppose that’s the best I can hope for.”

A deafening groan shuddered through the freighter, rippling beneath our feet and through the walls.

“Damn.” Bren immediately ran for the bridge.

“What is it?”

“Debris,” he called back, “or pirates.”

I followed him back onto the bridge. Alarms sounded. The observation display blinked red, and the crew buzzed about their controls.

“Report.”

“A starboard impact, Commander.”

“Any breach?”

“No, just minor damage to external antennae. We’re attempting to get a lock on the source.”

“Recall Jones and Cole, and send them to get eyes-on. We’re in Cande territory. I don’t want any surprises. Run a scan for any unusual comm activity in the immediate vicinity and flag anything remotely off the grid.”

James entered the bridge and stopped beside me.

“I felt the impact. What was it?” he asked quietly while the commander and his crew relayed commands and reports.

“I’m not sure.” I examined the proximity screen and the dozen or so blinking red markers that pinpointed the debris, one of which had struck us. “Just debris, but the commander appears to be lying. Perhaps he isn’t as sure as he’s making himself out to be.”

I met James’s eyes and smiled. “Pirates.”

Chapter Eleven: Caleb

I got doubts, like any other fucker in the nine systems. When I tapped in the fleet codes, unlocked the airlock hatch, and stepped into the dazzling white freighter corridor with a crazy pirate at my back and a pissed off second in my getaway ship, I had gut-clenching, knee-weakening doubts.

The freighter alarms were bleating the way they should be when some unknown object hits them broadside. Said object had been one of several of Starscream’s distraction buoys. We used them to dazzle pursuing ships, or in this case, poke a freighter on one side so we could board on the other.

Ade and me made for the bridge. I took out a single crewmember with a quick crack to his skull with the butt of my pulse rifle. We snuck up on another two. I disabled one with a few well-aimed low blows and a knee to the face, while Ade choked hers unconscious.

“Having fun yet?” Ade asked. The scarf and hood hid most of her face but couldn’t hide the glee curling through her muffled voice. Her crazy blue eyes were all I could see, and they were smiling.

Great, my pirate is a violence junkie.

“Let’s just get this done.”

I adjusted my hood and scarf, shouldered my rifle, and moved on. We had to hit the crew hard and fast, using surprise as our main weapon. If they caught on to the fact that they’d been boarded, they’d seal the bridge, locking us out and creating a stalemate that we’d have no choice but to back away from. Most pirates never got within a few klicks of a freighter before their proximity alerts opened fire. We’d bypassed their main defense. The rest should be easy.

“You trust Fran to be there when we’re done?”

I narrowed my eyes at Ade. She grinned like a crazy bitch behind her scarf. This is the first and last time I work with a pirate.

We rounded a right angle in the corridor and came face to face with three more crewmembers. One immediately tapped his wrist comms. Ade fired, shooting him between the eyes, then lunged for the fleet woman nearest her. The third came at me like a pro-wrestler. I twisted, managing to avoid the tackle. The kiss of a phase bullet buzzed by my head and, a fraction of a second later, the crack of suppressed fire followed.

“Ade! What the fuck?!”

“Sorry, Cap’n.” She had her gun propped under her opponent’s chin. “Finger slipped.”

“Commander—” my wrestler began.

“Oh no you don’t.” I lifted my rifle, aimed between the wrestler’s eyes, and locked glares, silencing his mayday. “Remove your comms.”

He reluctantly obliged.

“Kick it here.”

He did.

I crushed it under my boot while keeping my eyes well away from the fallen, twitching body. “My pirate friend here has an itchy trigger finger. I know you don’t wanna die over fleet cargo, so you’re going to sit next to your colleague and wait while the pirate ties you up. It’s that, or she kills you. You goin’ to behave so we can all go on about our business?”

Wrestler sneered. “Pirate scum.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

Ade tied up her catch then did the same with mine, tugging the zip ties tight enough to hurt.

We left them spitting insults and continued toward the bridge.

“Don’t kill anyone unless you have to.”

Ade grunted. “You’re a pirate now, Cale. They’ll kill you on sight. I ain’t waitin’ for that to happen.”

I knew she was ruthless, but to see her execute a man without so much as a blink? I may have released a monster in Ade.

She would kill anyone in a fleet uniform, out of revenge if for no other reason. I could hear Fran’s sweet voice saying, You’re making a mistake.

Fucking typical. My second-in-command wasn’t even here and she wouldn’t shut up.

“The bridge.” Ade hurried ahead, rifle primed.

I swallowed a breath, cleared my head, and followed. Maybe this would go easy. Maybe they wouldn’t fight back. Maybe it was my lucky fuckin’ day.

Chapter Twelve: #1001

I heard what sounded like suppressed gunfire and turned toward one of the two entry points into the bridge. James was idly chatting to my left. I blocked out his voice, blocked all input, and focused on searching out the two new voices approaching from the corridor.

“Commander …” Something about the incoming pair triggered recognition through my systems, but I couldn’t filter the data enough to get a positive identification. I had to get closer, so I left James’s side to approach the door.

They came through, faces hidden behind scarves, with their weapons raised. The woman’s intense gaze cut across the bridge and found her target in the commander. Her pupils dilated. Her finger twitched over the trigger. I knew that look: revenge. I lunged for the commander and shoved him down, sprawling us both across the controls. The phase bullet skimmed my shoulder and would have struck him dead in the chest.

“Stay down,” I hissed in his ear.

“Nobody fuckin’ move!” the male intruder announced.

No, it’s not possible. It can’t be him. I whipped my head around. The man’s hardened gaze scanned the crew, and then settled on me and widened in alarm. Caleb.

I knew the rhythm of his heartbeat and how his own brand of sly humor sharpened his shrewd eyes.

His female companion shifted her gun, lifting the sights to me. Caleb noticed her intention and lunged, sending her shot wide.

“Fuck, Ade!” he snarled. “Don’t shoot. They’re unarmed.”

“They should be dead,” she growled back at him.

Brendan’s hands settled on my shoulders and eased me aside. “We are unarmed, but we have crew throughout the ship who aren’t.”

That dry humor still sparkled in Caleb’s eyes, or maybe it wasn’t humor, but irony.

“You mean the crew we’ve already taken out?” His gaze flicked between me and the commander, but if Bren recognized him, he didn’t show it.

Bren inclined his head to me but kept his eyes on the pirates. “See to Doctor Lloyd.”

James. He’d fallen and was sitting back against the bulkhead, clutching at the spreading wetness in his chest. The wayward gunshot. I read his diagnostics, but by the pallor of his face and his glassy eyes, I already knew he’d bleed out within minutes.

“You’ve been boarded,” Caleb said, matter-a-fact. “Now if everyone would form an orderly queue to the shuttles so we can steal your ship, that’d be grand.”

“You won’t be taking this ship,” Brendan replied, equally as blasé. He was far too calm. Something wasn’t right.

I slid my gaze to the female pirate, who had murder in her eyes. Ade, Caleb had called her. I marked her in my mind, then turned to James.

“Synthetic, don’t move,” Ade ordered, lifting her rifle.

I smiled. “Please, try and stop me.”

Caleb’s next words saved her. “Don’t taunt the synth. She’ll rip your heart out. Let her go to him.”

I knelt beside James and took his cool hand in mine. He wasn’t dying on that bridge. I wouldn’t let him.

“Everything will be okay.…” I took his hand away from his chest and peeled open his sodden shirt. “Commander, throw me your jacket.”

Bren shrugged off his fleet jacket and tossed it to me. I wrapped the sleeve around my fist and leaned into James’s wound, tugging a ragged cry out of him.

“Let him die,” Ade snarled. “All you fleet bastards can die for all I care. Get moving to the shuttles now, or I’ll execute every last one of you. I want to do it too. Just give me an excuse and I will. So move!”

The commander nodded for his crew to go.

“Ade, go with them,” Caleb said. “Don’t shoot them unless they give you trouble.”

“They won’t,” Bren replied.

Ade cocked her head and studied the commander. Her eyes narrowed. She lifted her rifle at Bren. “Commander, what’s your name?”

“Brendan.”

“Brendan what?” she snapped.

Bren hesitated and flicked his gaze to Caleb. So he had recognized his brother. But there was more here, something unspoken—something that accounted for Bren’s calm response.

James gripped my arm and whispered his sister’s name, asking me to help her. He knew he’d die here. I swung my glare back to the pirate woman. “Let me take this man to the med bay.”

“No!” Ade snapped. “You wanna know why? Because this—” She stepped away from Caleb, inching around the bridge so she could swing the gun on any of us. “This is a setup.” She fixed her glare on Caleb. “You slippery son of a bitch. You”—she lifted the gun—“set this up. The commander, he’s your brother.”

Caleb tore the scarf free.

“Now that you mention it, there is a resemblance. Fancy that, halfway across the fuckin’ nine, and it has to be his ship. Luck, I guess.” He shrugged.

Bren wasn’t surprised to see Caleb; his heart was still beating a steady rhythm. He’d known his brother was on board. He’d known Caleb was coming. They’d been in contact long before this moment. “I take it, Caleb-Joe, that she’s the wildcard you mentioned.”

Ade’s eyes blazed.

“You…!” She jerked the gun at Cale. Everyone but Caleb twitched. “Caleb Shepperd, every word that comes out of your mouth is a lie!”

“You really thought I was going to steal you a fuckin’ freighter, Ade?” He snorted a laugh. “That’s some Cande ego you’ve got there.”

“I’ll blow your ship—”

“What with? The cargo Fran jettisoned?” He mock-winced. “Kinda sucks to be you right now.” Caleb turned to me. “Take the doctor to Starscream. Fran will be there. Quickly, synth. I don’t want any more blood on my hands.”

I scooped James up. He groaned, barely hanging on to consciousness.

“Don’t anyone fuckin’ move,” Ade growled. “I don’t know how you Shepperd bastards set this up, and I don’t care. This freighter is mine. Nobody leaves the bridge until it’s docked in my backyard.”

“The freighter belongs to the Fenrir Nine,” Caleb replied. “You wanted to get back at fleet? This is the way to do it. If you weren’t a fuckin’ psychopath, I’d have you on board.”

She recoiled “You’re giving this ship to the Nine? Does your fleet second-in-command know?”

He tried to maintain his grin, but it fluttered, weakening.

Bren caught my eye and nodded toward the door.

Ade Candelario fixed me in her sights, and for a few seconds, neither of us moved.

“You can shoot me if you like,” I said, “but it won’t stop me. And while you pull the trigger, the captain will return fire. Given the angle of his gun, the phase bullet will punch through your right eye socket and kill you before you hit the deck.”

She snarled. I ignored her and carried James off the bridge. Whatever the Shepperd brothers had planned, they didn’t need me, but James did. He couldn’t—wouldn’t die. I wouldn’t let it happen. I needed him to live.

Chapter Thirteen: Caleb

My brother had somehow neglected to mention, during our brief, but numerous comms chats, that he had #1001 on board his freighter. I would’ve thought he’d have said something.

Hey, Cale, funny thing. Your dead ex-girlfriend, the one who’s now a machine and who recently shot you in the head? Yeah, her. She’s cruising around the nine with me.

I’d be laying into him about that, once I talked Ade out of filling me full of bullet holes.

I jerked my rifle, finger resting on the trigger, just like hers. “Ade, if you shoot me, you’re never getting off this freighter.”

She shifted her weight from foot to foot and darted her gaze between me and my brother, but kept the business end of her gun aimed true on me. Bren was standing behind his control panel, hands slightly raised at his sides but otherwise pretty fucking calm. He would be calm; he wasn’t the one in Ade’s crosshairs.

I was meant to turn on her the second we’d gotten Bren’s crew off the bridge, but seeing #1001 standing beside my fucking brother had blindsided me. I hated surprises about as much as I hated Mondays. Then Ade had gone all crazy psycho bitch and here we were, in a pirate-smuggler standoff. Ade would shoot me out of spite if nothing else. Fran was always fucking right.

“Shoot me and you start a war with the Candes,” she hissed. “You’re a dead man, Shepperd. You crossed the wrong family. My brothers will hunt you to the corners of the nine systems. Your career as a smuggler will be over—they’ll make sure of it. Nobody will go near you or Starscream. You might as well hightail it back to Asgard and hide there, because it’s all—”

I dropped my aim and shot her in the thigh. She collapsed in a writhing, swearing, hissing ball, and would have snagged her gun had I not kicked it out of her reach.

“Ah, quit your bitchin’. You’ll live.”

She spat a string of deliciously murderous Spanish.

I smiled at my brother. “Women make my life so very interesting.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be such a bastard,” Bren replied, lowering his hands. “It’s good to see you, Caleb-Joe.”

“Drop the fucking Joe. Have the shuttles detached?”

I left Ade grumbling on the floor and joined Bren at the freighter’s main controls.

“Yes,” he said. “The ship’s ours.”

“Not for long. The Nine are waiting. Link her controls with Starscream and let’s tug this freighter to the jump gate before the Candes and fleet catch on. Until we’re through, we’re vulnerable.”

Bren lightly tapped the control panel, commanding the freighter’s behemoth size with a few strokes. “Fran doesn’t know you planned this from the second you got out of Asgard, does she?”

“No, and she can’t know yet. She’s fleet.”

“Fleet?” he scoffed. I must have had the same look when the Nine had told me my second was compromised. “She can’t be.”

“She admitted it before I could blast her from the airlock. She’s fleet, Bren.”

His hands stilled over the controls. He lifted his head. “And she’s on board with stealing the freighter?”

“Fuck no. She thinks I’m stealing it from the rich to give to the poor. Since she came out as fleet, she’s gotten a righteous chip on her shoulder the size of a small moon, as if she’s doing the nine systems a favor. She thinks she’s one of the good guys—or maybe she thinks she can turn me into one.”

One of his dark eyebrows lifted. “Clearly, after two years, she doesn’t know you very well.”

“Nor you, brother.” I gave him a hefty slap on the back. “Welcome to the dark side, where there’s contaminated drugs, whores a-plenty, and toxic alcohol galore. You’ll hate it.”

He mustered something of a half smile and sucked down a deep breath. “This feels right. Fleet hasn’t felt right for years, not since you got kicked out. Maybe even before that.”

Finally, my brother and me saw eye to eye on something. It didn’t make up for him being an asshole, but at least now it made two of us.

“We need to get back to Fran before she freaks out over the synth. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me she was here?”

“I picked her up on Janus. You’d have gotten cold feet had you known she was on board.”

“She almost executed me.”

He was right. Seeing the synth again undermined my attempts to forget she’d ever happened, the memories of which would all come rushing back once I came down off my adrenalin high.

“We’ll talk about her, and everything else, once we’re back on Starscream and out of trouble,” I said.

“Controls are patched into Starscream, the crew have departed, and the fleet tracker unit is disabled. We’re clear to proceed. What are you going to do with the Cande pirate?”

I slid my gaze to Ade and found her clutching her thigh and watching me with unnerving serenity. Good question.

Chapter Fourteen: #1001

I set James down on Starscream’s dining table and tore open his shirt. Fran ripped open a med-pack with her teeth and, after wiping the puncture wound in his chest, sprayed it with med-filler and applied a staunch-pad. It was a temporary fix, but it would immediately staunch the blood loss. I rolled him onto his side, and she did the same to the exit wound. She worked quickly, with the kind of familiar efficiency of someone who was used to dealing with physical trauma.

“He can’t die,” I said, easing him onto his back once more.

He mumbled some incoherent nonsense.

“He’s not going to.” She jabbed an injector against his neck. James’s lashes fluttered. “Is he hurt anywhere else?”

“No. What did you give him?”

“Something to take the pain away. He’ll be stable for a little while, but the sooner we can get him somewhere with better facilities, the happier he’ll be.”

“The freighter has a well-stocked med bay.”

She straightened and wiped her bloodied hands on a towel. Her unforgiving eyes narrowed on me. When I’d arrived on Starscream, she’d seen James in my arms and had reacted without a word. Now that James was stable, her glare turned hard and penetrating.

“Where’s Caleb?”

“On the bridge with the commander.”

“Alive?”

“When I left, yes.”

“Wait … the commander?”

“Brendan.”

Her eyes widened. “The freighter is his? But … h-how is that…? How are you here? How the fuck is his brother here? The entire fuckin’ nine systems—an entire fleet of freighters—and we have to steal Brendan Shepperd’s? That’s not possible.”

She sunk a hand into her short hair and backed away from the table. “Fuck. He set this up. He set this whole fucking operation up. That slippery son of a bitch—”

She cut herself short and bolted from the rec bay. Whatever she was about to do, it frightened her.

“James …” I leaned over and touched the young technician’s face. “You aren’t going to die, because I need you to live. I’m broken, and you’re going to fix me. Do you understand?”

His eyelashes fluttered, but he didn’t wake.

“You are an asset. I will save you. But Francisca is about to jeopardize everything. Rest.” I brushed my thumb against his warm cheek. “Everything will be all right.”

I found Fran on the bridge, hands working fast over the controls, flicking switches, dialing coordinates, and priming Starscream’s engines for departure. The freighter’s gigantic hull filled the entire obs window.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

When she ignored me, I moved next to Shepperd’s empty flight chair and examined the sweep of her hands. “Those coordinates … you’re taking us back to old Earth? To fleet headquarters?”

Caleb and Brendan hadn’t stolen a freighter only to give it back to fleet.

I recalled Bren’s words to me, about allegiances and the Nine. Bren was working against fleet. Caleb and Bren had stolen the freighter from fleet command, and Fran was about to take it back.

“You need to tell me what you’re doing,” I said.

“I don’t need to tell you anything, synth.” Her voice quivered. Her data blossomed with the telltale signs of fear, from her rapid breathing to her racing heart. She would either fight or run, but which? “He lied to me, to the Candes, to everyone. I got him out of Asgard and this is how he repays me.”

It was more than that. “He wouldn’t want this. He and Bren are taking the freighter to the Nine.”

Her hands froze. She slowly turned in her chair. “He’s selling the freighter to the Nine?”

Why didn’t she already know this? “As far as I can assume, after assessing the available information.”

An ironic smile tugged her lips up at one corner. She looked at me as if she couldn’t quite believe my words, and then laughed softly.

“That bastard has balls of fuckin’ steel. His brother too, apparently. Fuckin’ Shepperd’s.” She returned to the flight dash and reset the coordinates to the nearest jump gate. “If he’d just told me we were going to see the Nine, I’d have happily obliged.”

She was lying. This Francisca Franco wasn’t the same woman I’d met several cycles ago. Anxiety strummed through her, as well as fear and doubt. Perhaps even regret lurked in the skitter of her glances. It all added up to someone in conflict with herself.

“You’re not who you appear to be,” I said. “You’re fleet.”

“And you’re a Chitec synth.” She kept her gaze ahead. “Don’t judge me.”

I closed my right hand into a fist. “You’re fleet, and a liability to Starscream’s crew.”

“You’re more of a liability to this ship than I am. I’m the second-in-command, and you’re the machine that almost killed the captain. I’d be careful where you point that finger, synthetic.”

“You called fleet to Mimir the night I shot Caleb.”

She huffed a dry laugh. “You’re just now putting all the data pieces together, huh? Well, form all the neat little conclusions you like. You don’t know me, you don’t know Caleb, and you sure as shit don’t know what it’s like living in-the-black.”

“It’s why Caleb doesn’t trust you. Why he didn’t tell you about his brother, or the real reason he’s stealing the freighter. You are not an asset.”

Fran caught the finality of my tone and pulled a pistol out from under the dash. She swung it around and fired, but I’d already moved in. The bullet went wide. I snatched the pistol from her grip, flung it aside, pushed the ball of my hand under her chin, and jerked her head back into her seat—all in the time it took for her to gasp. I hemmed her in with my body, pinning her down. I could kill her. The angle of my hand, where it was pushing under her chin, could easily break her neck.

Not an asset. A threat.

But Caleb cared for her in ways I didn’t understand. A part of me, the darkest part, the part that harbored dangerous memories, wanted to kill her, but James’s earlier words prevented me from making the last, final movement. Killing is never a viable option.

I leaned closer, pushing my face so close to hers that I could taste her fear. “You once threatened to tear me apart if I hurt this ship or Caleb. Now I return your words to you, Francisca.”

“One Thousand And One.” Caleb’s clear voice pushed through my precise desire to kill. “Stand down.”

“She’s fleet. Fleet are Chitec,” I replied, my glare drilling deep into Fran’s conflicted soul.

“Oh, believe me, I know.”

“She intended to return this freighter to fleet.”

“Stand down.”

I slowly eased off Fran and backed away. Caleb stood a few strides inside the bridge, rifle relaxed at his side. His cool stare appraised me, as though I were the enemy. Perhaps I was.

“She is afraid, and a liar.”

“That she is.” He sauntered forward, tossed the rifle against his shoulder, and stopped behind his flight chair. “Much like the rest of us.”

He turned his face to look at me, and I recalled how I’d last seen him: on his knees on the Mimir pier, hands raised, his face wet, and his eyes bright while the storm raged around us.

‘Nobody and nothing gives a damn about Caleb Shepperd.’ I did. I cared that he was alive, that I hadn’t killed him.

He smiled, shattering his hardened expression and my nonexistent heart along with it. “It’s good to see you again, One Thousand And One, but if you could please not kill me or my crew, at least until we’re out of the Cande neighborhood, I’d sure appreciate it.”

His words mirrored those he’d said when we’d met in Starscream’s hold. I’d been trying to kill him at the time, but now I wanted to tell him that I’d been wrong, that I hadn’t understood what my purpose was, or why I had to run. I wanted to tell him that I was broken and didn’t know how I could be fixed, or even if I could. But more than all of that, I wanted to say I was sorry, just like James had said to me. Sorry—too little a word for it to mean so much. I opened my mouth to say it, but Caleb spoke first.

“Bren’s with the young doctor. Why don’t you go help him? Me and Fran need to talk.”

Fran had hardly moved. She was gripping her chair so tightly her knuckles had paled, and she glared at me as though by looks alone she could hurt me.

My face trained in neutrality, I said, “Yes, Captain.”

Chapter Fifteen: Caleb

What had happened to the easy life? Drug and gun runs from one corner of the nine systems to the other, and balancing one fucker against another. Shit, I’d known stealing a freighter wouldn’t be easy, even with my brother at the helm, but I hadn’t expected the drama to come from my own crew.

I slumped in my flight chair, rifle resting on my thigh, and puffed out a sigh. “You were right.”

Fran’s skittish glare flicked to the gun in my lap, and then darted back to my face. “About what?”

She was wound up so damn tight that she’d likely bolt for the bridge door at any second.

I stretched my legs out, just in case I needed to trip up her exit. “Ade Cande is a crazy bitch. She pulled a gun on me when she figured out I’d screwed her over, again.”

“You don’t have to be crazy to pull a gun on Captain Shepperd. Seems reasonable to me.” Fran slowly eased back in her chair, far from relaxed. “Where is she now?”

“Out cold in the freighter’s med bay. Gave her something for the pain and drugged her. She’s too high to give a fuck about anything. I’ll drop her off at the next port and blast out of the system before she can get herself a ship to come after me.” Which she would. Never mind her brothers. I’d just made the top of her hit list.

I dragged my hand across my chin and lifted my gaze to glare at Fran. What the hell was I supposed to do with my second? I’d heard enough of her discussion with #1001 to know Fran had every intention of turning Starscream around and dumping me and my ship right into fleet’s lap for a second time.

Fran leaned to one side and rubbed her forehead.

“The freighter”—she thumbed at the obs window, at the colossal freighter hull filling the screen—“is your brother’s. You knew it from the start.”

I smiled sideways. “I’m not just a pretty face. I have some smarts sometimes.”

Her perfect eyebrow arched high while the rest of her face judged me.

“I contacted Bren right after you got me out of Asgard. He wanted out of fleet, but I’d been fucked by fleet before.…” I let that hang in the air a while. “So I wanted proof that he meant it and convinced him to bring something valuable with him.”

A flick of my hand toward the window told her that the something valuable was the freighter. She kept her eyes trained on my face and avoided looking at the gun resting on my leg. Looking at it would make it real, and knowing it was real would mean she’d have to acknowledge the fact that I would shoot her.

“But Ade Cande planted the bomb,” she said, “to force your hand in stealing the freighter. How did you set her up?”

“I saw the Cande branding on the crates in the hold and knew we were headed for Cande territory. So I asked Bren to drop a few anonymous hints about a freighter ripe for the picking and release a few flight plans. He dangled the bait and the Candes bit.”

“But you didn’t know Ade would be the one to take the bait?”

“Fuck no. And I didn’t know we were carrying a fuck load of explosives. I should have figured it out though. She used you to get me out of Asgard and planted the bomb on Starscream to personally fuck with me because I’d left her in the black. And then when she saw me on KP-Ninety-Two, she figured she could use her cargo to force me into pirating a freighter. She has more pirate in her blood than iron. I should have known it’d be her. As it turns out, we both wanted the same thing. She just didn’t know it.”

Fran was smiling by the time I’d finished. “Are there no limits to who’ll you’ll fuck to get your own way?”

“None.” As I’d talked, I’d eased my hand over the rifle. “I now have a freighter and no intention of giving it to the poor folk on that Cande rock. I’m selling it.”

Her smile twitched then died. “God forbid Caleb Shepperd actually does something for someone else. Fuck that. He’d much rather see people suffer because he wants to fill out his credit account so he can spend it on whores and booze and maybe gamble it away on Lyra. That’s a much more worthwhile cause.”

Her words couldn’t hurt me. “I knew you’d understand.”

“I understand you’re a lowlife piece of shit,” she snarled, her eyes challenging me. She was sitting too still and was probably thinking about lunging for the gun. If she did, I’d plant a phase bullet in her gut.

Starscream’s engines grumbled low, waiting to depart for the rendezvous with the Nine.

Fuck, I didn’t want to kill Fran. I’d heard #1001 tell her I was taking the freighter to the Nine, which Fran had so far neglected to mention. She’d fired up my ship’s engines to tug the freighter back to fleet. She was fleet, through and through—more fleet than my brother was, as it turned out.

She peered back at me with her typical too-good-for-me look, knowing I was about to take her right back to the Nine; all she had to do was keep her mouth shut. I could have let the synth kill her. I should have killed her myself right after Asgard. My life would have been so much easier without a fuckin’ fleet spy as my second-in-command, but I couldn’t do it. I’d killed folks for money, men and women both, and I’d killed to survive, but I couldn’t pull the fucking trigger on Fran.

“Did I ever have your loyalty?” I asked, almost too softly to be heard over the background din of engines.

Fran closed her eyes just a fraction too long for it to be a blink, then looked away, out of the obs window. “Yes.”

“That’s funny, because I spoke to Bren about what happened on Mimir. When you and him and Jesse were helping with the cleanup after fleet scorched the warehouses? You know…? Oh wait, you don’t, because you were never there.”

She’d lied. She hadn’t stayed behind with Jesse and Bren; her story was all bullshit. While I’d gotten my ass handed to me by Chen Hung, I’d bet credits on her being back at fleet command, debriefing her superiors in some nice, shiny old-Earth office.

“You didn’t stick around on Mimir. I spoke to Jesse and Bren both. Nobody saw you there, because you took my ship and fucked off with fleet, leaving countless dead and businesses in ruins.”

Her pulse fluttered in the delicate line of her neck.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she said quietly, still searching the view for her fuckin’ conscience.

“A choice?” I laughed. “Choice is about the only fucking thing we can control in the black. Fleets not here, Fran. It’s just you an’ me. You can make a choice.”

I hooked my finger over the trigger. “You get to choose right here, because I can’t take you any farther if you’re going to call in backup every time you get the slightest whiff of the Nine.”

She winced and faced me. “The Fenrir Nine are dangerous, Caleb.”

That was not the right thing to say. Why couldn’t she just fuckin’ say she’d stick with me and drop fleet? I was willing to believe her. No, she had to be the stubborn, always right Fran.

“They’re working to destabilize the infrastructure of the nine systems, by disrupting the gates. Fleet can’t let that happen. If the gates fail, like they did before, or if control falls into the wrong hands, in the hands of the Fenrir Nine—”

“Stop fucking talking.” Jesus, she had no idea what was happening even after spending two years with me in the black. She really was fleet, down to the bone. “I bet you look hot in a fleet uniform. All trussed up in white, like the saviors of the black. How many stripes do you have?”

She clenched her teeth, a muscle in her cheek pulsing. “I told you, I’m just an ensign.”

Bullshit. “Lieutenant? Lieutenant commander?” A twitch. “Fuck, higher? I should salute you, huh?”

“Cale, if you’d just stop and think about what you’re doing. The loss of that freighter will hit fleet hard. They’re not all corrupt. Fleet is stretched thin. That’s why they lean hard on Chitec.”

Telling me to feel sorry for fleet would get her an early grave. If I pulled the trigger, the phase bullet would punch through her chest and, given the low impact setting, would probably lodge somewhere inside her ribcage. It’d be slow, painful, and ugly. If I were going to do this, I’d have to execute her clean and quick. She deserved it to be quick. That meant shooting her in the head. Fuck.

I rubbed my free hand over my face. My head said do it, but my heart, that withered, fucked up, full of holes, shallow thing said don’t. I’d listened to my head when I’d watched Chen Hung kill his daughter. That had been a mistake. My head was fucked up. I swallowed and breathed in deep through my nose.

“I can pilot Starscream myself. I even have a synth on board. She’ll have the entire tugship maintenance manual in that head of hers. I also have a commander who finally sees the fuckin’ truth through the propaganda. Tell me what I need you for, because right now, I’m having a hard time justifying keeping you around.”

She smiled that smug-bitch smile. “You’re not a bad guy, Cale. You’re just misguided.”

“Misguided?” Fuck, she was priceless. “You’re fired. Get off my bridge. From here on out, you’re barred from the flightdash. I don’t want to see you anywhere near this bridge. Stick to your cabin and the rec bay. If you fuck with Starscream or me in any way, I will execute you. This is my last warning. Don’t make me kill you, Fran.”

She held my stare, her eyes narrowed, and then she jerked from her chair and strode from the bridge. I waited a few beats, listening to her boots stomp down the catwalk, and slumped forward, covering my face with my hands. I needed a vacation. Once the Fenrir Nine paid me for the freighter, I was taking leave on Lyra and burying myself in whores and booze, just like Fran had suggested. But first, I had to deliver the freighter.

Straightening, I faced Starscream’s controls, checked Fran’s input, and made a few adjustments. Starscream would pull the freighter easily enough; she’d started out life as a tug, not a fixer’s ride, so this was well inside her comfort zone. I checked the proximity sensors, double checked my coordinates, and settled in for the flight ahead. While attached to the freighter, we were vulnerable. Now, more than ever, I needed to focus.

My wrist comms buzzed. I gave it a tap, half of my attention still on the controls.

“Caleb-Joe, have you rectified your crew problem?”

My brother’s no-bullshit military tone would take some getting used to. “We’re good. Also, you got demoted. Congratulations on your new position as my second. Just don’t betray me and we’ll get along fine.”

A few seconds of silence followed. I flicked Starscream’s engines from idle to flight mode.

“Your second?” Bren asked.

“Uh-huh. Got a problem with that, brother?”

“No, I … I just—When I woke up this morning, I didn’t imagine I’d finish the day as second-in-command on my little brother’s smuggling boat.”

“Welcome to life in-the-black—expect surprises. And ditch the fleet uniform. If I see you in fleet whites, my reflex is to shoot first. How are the doctor and the pirate?”

“Stable.”

“And One Thousand And One?” I barred the waver from my voice, mostly. Not that I feared her, or what she could do, or what she remembered.

“She’s with the doctor. Is there anything else … Captain?”

Now that I liked. My perfect brother, the one who always won and always got the girl, was calling me captain. Maybe this day wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Yeah, stay out of Fran’s way. She’ll be looking for a fight, and seeing as you’re a walking, talking effigy of our disagreement, she might take a swing at you.” I tapped my comms, shutting him off.

Fran was just as likely to fuck him as fight him. He could probably do with a tumble between the sheets; it might loosen up some of that commander tension. He’d need to relax if he hoped to survive in the black. I’d take him around Ganymede, show him the ropes, and pick a few fights and a few girls. But not yet. First, I had to get the suddenly hot fleet freighter through the jump gate, offload her to the Nine, and collect my generous cut.

I wrapped my fingers around the controls and hit the engage button, but instead of Starscream’s engines surging with all her available power, I got a feedback blip-blip noise. I hit the button again, and the same thing happened. No power meant no flight, which meant we were dead in the black and easy pickings.

“Okay …” I went over the flight procedure again, clutched the booster lever, and hit the engage button. Blip-blip. Nothing. The power was there—Starscream was ready and eager to get going—but my flight commands weren’t getting through. That had never happened before.

I tapped my comms. “Hey, Bren. I need you and One Thousand And One on the bridge.”

“Acknowledged.”

As I waited for their arrival, I went over the same routine again and again, and with every new try, unease crawled its way up my spine.

“Captain.” #1001 stood over my shoulder, looking somewhere between a fleet refugee in her gray sweats and a cold-blooded machine with her all-seeing, knowledge-filled eyes.

I ignored the startling memory of her shooting me in the head, despite her standing at about the right height to do the same, and focused on the more immediate problem. “You seemed to know about Starscream’s inner workings when you joined us last time. Wanna search those datafiles of yours and tell me why I can’t engage the thrust engines?”

Bren leaned over my other shoulder and scanned the controls. “Maybe you made a mistake entering the sequence.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with a reply.”

#1001 stepped in front of Fran’s empty flight chair and cocked her head. The backlit array of controls illuminated her perfect face, like a display in a jeweler’s window. Light played in her eyes, touched her smooth skin, and brushed her lips, and not for the first time, I had to catch my thoughts and drag them back onto the bridge.

“Francisca locked you out, Captain,” #1001 announced, in the same way as she might remark on the wonderful fucking weather we’d been having. “I saw the pattern of her input commands, and comparing those to the datafiles of tugship controls such as these, she’s engaged a master kill switch.”

Fuckin’ perfect.

“Can you retrace those patterns and disable it?” I asked.

“No. She has the code.”

“We have incoming ships approaching on the proximity sensors,” Bren said.

I glanced up and saw the same blinking dots on the sensors as him. The ships were small and had masked their ID-numbers—so, pirates. Given how I was floating in Cande airspace with Ade Cande in my med bay, I took a stab at guessing that our guests were the Cande family coming to check out why we weren’t delivering their gift.

“Fine. This is all absolutely perfectly fucking fine.”

I scooped up my rifle and stood, bringing myself too damn close to #1001. Her cool gaze trickled over me, sending a lick of fear down my spine, then she stepped aside.

“Bren, take the controls and delay the pirates,” I ordered. “Tell them we’re just experiencing some problems, but we’ll have their ship to them soon. Meanwhile, don’t let anyone touch anything on this bridge without my say-so.”

I eased by the synth, then paused and turned back. She studied me with those ever-curious eyes, sucking in all my data and devouring it. She probably knew I was afraid of her, but she wouldn’t know how many different fuckin’ ways I feared her.

“Fran—right now—is an asset. We need her to get this ship moving. I need you to go to the freighter and move the two injured crew onto Starscream, as a precaution. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Captain.”

If she was calling me captain, I was safe. On those terms, we could work together. It’s when she called me Caleb that my past and hers collided.

I handed #1001 a wrist comm and set about searching Starscream while she retrieved the patients. If events turned sour, I wanted everyone close and not spread about an enormous freighter.

I’d tried Fran’s comm and hadn’t gotten a reply, and then I found the unit in her cabin. Wherever she was, she’d be seething. We’d had our fair share of spats, but this was on an entirely new level of fucked up.

Starscream had a bewildering amount of hidey-holes. Rifle locked and loaded, I searched them all, acutely aware that the longer we sat twiddling our thumbs, the more likely it was that fleet would show up. Bren’s crew would have sent out a distress call as soon as the escape shuttles were free. The Candes knew not to answer, but fleet would hear it soon enough. This was not the time to be playing hide-and-seek with my second.

I entered the hold and took a few steps inside the empty space, feeling not unlike I had back in the Candes quarry, hemmed in and hunted.

“Hello, Caleb.”

I shouldered the rifle and had it aimed on Ade before she could fling a dagger or words. She was leaning against the bulkhead. For someone meant to be out cold and recovering from a gunshot wound to the thigh, she looked pretty alert and mildly psychotic.

Something cool and hard nudged me in the lower back. I sucked in air through my teeth and froze. Fran’s warm breath fluttered against my neck. I knew it was her by the lavender smell of her soap. An ambush. Gee, could my day get any worse?

“Drop the rifle, Captain.” Her words brushed against my ear and delivered a heady dose of fucked-up lust at entirely the wrong time. She probably knew it too. “Drop the fuckin’ gun, Cale, or I’ll shoot you in the back with one of your own guns.”

“My guns?”

“I cleared them out before fleet could strip Starscream of anything valuable.” She slipped her left hand around my waist from behind and slid it way too close to my junk for comfort. “I can appreciate a good weapon.”

She pulled me against her and taught me exactly what it felt like to have a dagger pressed deep against my cock, because sure, that was a whole heap of fun. A gun in my back and a knife on my junk. That pretty much qualified me as screwed.

“Maybe we can continue this conversation back in my cabin?”

The dagger dug in, hot shards of pain sparked through my balls. I winced.

“Drop the gun or I’ll castrate you, Captain.”

I dropped the gun.

Ade tossed me a salute and hobbled forward, leaning away from her bad leg. “Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

With her closer, the drug-induced opaque glaze of her eyes was obvious. Fran must have given her something to bring her back around, deciding to enlist the help of the only other person on the ship who hated me as much as she did.

This was a really bad day to be me. “The two of you getting your dominance on? I gotta say, this is really doin’ it for me right now.”

Ade’s backhand carried the same weight as a fucking sledgehammer. If I hadn’t been leaning back against Fran, she’d have knocked me on my ass. Fire washed up the right side of my face and the metallic taste of blood bloomed in my mouth.

“Oh, honey. You can hit harder than that.”

And she did. This time my eyes watered. I spat blood and laughed. Ade could beat me all she wanted; I’d been raised under fists. This shit was practically nostalgic.

“Ade,” Fran said, “he’s bating you so you’ll screw up.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fran, for fuck’s sake. You spoil all my fun.”

Ugly fury twisted Ade’s expression. She pointed a trembling finger at my face. “You, Caleb Shepperd, are a dead man.”

Stuck between these two, I didn’t doubt it. Where was the synth when I needed her?

“As lovely as this threesome is, we have ships inbound. Probably Cande ships, so you fine ladies need to sort your shit out and decide what you want to do with the freighter. Seeing as, y’know, Fran’s a fleet commander and still on their payroll.”

Ade’s eyes flashed. “A commander?”

It had been a guess, but judging by the way Fran had tensed against me, I’d hit the truth.

“I reckon she’s had a few pirates in her sights over the years. Maybe even had something to do with the massacre of your crew? Did she not mention her fleet service record?” The gun in my back dug in hard enough to make me grimace. “Seein’ as you don’t much like fleet, Ade, I’m surprised you’re letting her order you around. You’ve never struck me as a fleet lackey.”

Fran’s dagger point jabbed low into my thigh. “Shut it, Cale.”

But the damage was done.

Ade gave Fran the same cutthroat glare she’d been giving me.

“Tell me the flightdash master code so I can get this heap of junk moving and tug the freighter to my depot,” Ade demanded.

Junk?! “Hey, Starscream’s not—”

Fran turned the dagger in, nearly castrating me. I shut up.

“I’m not telling you the code, Ade,” my second purred, so confident she was better than all of us. “Nobody gets to know the code but me, and the only way this ship is moving again is with me behind the controls.”

My wrist comms bleated. It’d probably be #1001 telling me Ade was missing from the med bay, or maybe my brother about to tell us that the Candes were boarding—none of which could help me out of my predicament.

“The freighter is going to my people, Commander Francisca,” Ade hissed.

“This freighter belongs to fleet. It’s not going anywhere with pirates, or smugglers, or the Fenrir Nine.”

“Ladies.” I swallowed. “I get you have issues, but we’re on borrowed time. If you could just let me go while you discuss—”

Ade picked up my rifle. She moved awkwardly around the pain in her thigh and aimed loosely at my abdomen. “I’ll shoot through him to hit you, bitch.”

Fran dragged me backward.

My wrist comms bleated again. This is taking too long. Someone needs to fuck up.

“Ade, you might want to flick it to high impact. If you shoot me on that setting, the bullet’ll likely stop at me.”

She looked down to adjust the setting.

I jerked my head back, connecting hard with Fran’s nose, and at the same time twisted in her grip, knocking her dagger-wielding hand away. She already knew she was beat but that didn’t stop her from fighting. I forced her gun arm high. The gun went off close to my ear—the bitch had fucking fired even after everything we’d been through—and I punched her hard in the gut. She crumpled into me with a whooshed exhale and whipped her arm around as though trying to drag me down with her.

A dull impact numbed my lower back and a warm wetness spread down my thigh. We scuffled up close and dirty. I gripped the gun and twisted it out of her blood-slicked fingers, then went to push her away when my legs nearly buckled under me. What the fu—

Ade’s cool fingers threaded into my hair, and she hauled me backward. If she had a dagger, she’d cut my throat in the next move. I didn’t think; there wasn’t time. I reacted, aiming the pistol under my arm, and fired. The crack of gunfire rang out like a death knell through the hold. Ade’s grip vanished. I heard her body crumple and knew—just fuckin’ knew—she wasn’t ever getting back up. A glance proved it—blood and bone. My gut heaved, rolling my insides halfway up my throat. I staggered, needing to look away but unable to. The underarm angle I’d fired from had arched the bullet high. It had punched through Ade’s chin and blasted out the back of her skull, raining bits of her insides against the bulkhead.

“Fuck …” Strength bled from my legs. Cool nausea washed over me, threatening to double me over so I could hurl my guts all over Starscream’s floor.

I killed her. I killed Ade. The blood, the bits of bone and other shit, that was Ade.

My focus blurred, and I almost dropped. If I fell, I wouldn’t get back up.

“Cale …”

I turned the pistol on Fran with a trembling aim. “Drop the dagger. Get up off the floor, get to the bridge, and let me back into my ship’s controls.”

My vision fogged. I shook my head to clear it while my heart thudded fast and heavy.

Fran looked past me and paled. She stared, expression slack. “Oh by-the-nine, the Candes will want blood.” I can’t think about this. I can’t face it.

“Move!” My shout boomed through Starscream’s hold, and finally Fran looked at me and saw a killer. She climbed to her feet and held out the bloodied dagger.

I followed her out of the hold, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other to keep the dark from swallowing me.

“They’re requesting to speak with Ade Cande,” my brother said while Fran, white as a sheet with a swollen lip and a bloody nose, gingerly sat in her flight chair. I must have looked like shit, because Bren stayed quiet when I leaned heavily on the back of Fran’s chair and pressed the pistol against her neck.

“Undo whatever the fuck you did to lock me out.” My voice broke, and I didn’t give a fuck. I was either about to pass out, throw up, or die. Considering the amount of blood soaking into my pirate getup, death was as likely as the other options. The punch I’d felt in my back hadn’t been a punch at all, but Fran sticking me with her dagger. The fuckin’ irony.

A crazy smile tugged at my lips. Laugh or cry—I could go either way, maybe both. I was having a hard time focusing and concentrating and would rather have lain down for a while. Guilt churned in my gut, washing hot shivers beneath my skin. I couldn’t shake the image of bits of Ade’s once pretty head painting the fucking walls in the hold.

“You er … you might wanna sit down before you fall down,” Bren suggested.

I’d wedged my arms over Fran’s chair and probably couldn’t move if I’d wanted to. “I’m fine.”

I watched Fran’s trembling hands undo the lockout procedure. She was afraid for her life, and so she fucking should be.

“Where’s Ade? We need to placate the Candes. They’re not the most patient—”

“Bren …” I tried to swallow and failed to get past the knot in my throat. “She’s not coming.”

I hadn’t meant to kill her. Sure, she was nuts, but so was I.

Fuck. I bowed my head. I couldn’t lose it. Not yet. Don’t think. Don’t think about her crazy-ass smile, or how she tasted, or the way she only wanted to do right for the people on that rock she called home. She had it coming. This was her fault, not mine.

My gut heaved. I squeezed my eyes closed and swallowed the bile. Wouldn’t it be grand to have a machine mind so I could separate all the shit and file it away for later? To switch off the parts of me that felt? Jesus, I envied #1001 her ability to not feel.

“Cale, I-I’m sorry.” Fran. Fucking Fran.

My lips twisted around a snarl and a smile. I opened my eyes to find Fran’s sorry expression begging me not to kill her.

“Are we done?” I asked, surprised at how steady my voice sounded.

“Yes. You have control.”

“Bren, I need to be sitting there.…”

Bren left my flight chair and watched restlessly as I eased my battered, blood-soaked body into the seat. I kept the pistol in my lap, trained on Fran, and detached Starscream from the freighter, boosting us back away from the bulk of the ship. The black of endless space yawned over the horizon of the freighter and just beyond, the three horseshoe-shaped Cande ships waited. I reached under my flight chair and flicked the switch to turn Starscream from a harmless tug to a beast with enough firepower to wipe the floor with those three little unprepared Cande vessels. Starscream’s engines growled low. I targeted one of the three ships—didn’t matter which—picked up the external comms unit, and tucked it in my ear.

“This is Captain Caleb Shepperd of the Starscream Independent tug, number six-zero-six, in the process of procuring a shiny fleet freighter. Ade can’t come to the comms right now, so please leave a message and she’ll get right back to you.”

I sounded okay, as if everything was normal, but it wasn’t. Everything was so far from normal that I wasn’t even sure this was real. This day was happening to someone else, it had to be, because I didn’t feel a fucking thing.

“Captain Shepperd, this is Turner Candelario, Ade’s brother. You have something of a reputation, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with my sister.”

I muted my comms. “Her brother. Of course it’s her fucking brother.…”

I closed my eyes. This wouldn’t go well. Whatever I said wouldn’t change the fact that this man’s sister was lying dead in my cargo hold. The Candes would come for me. They’d hunt me and wouldn’t stop until I was dead. Telling them it had been an accident wouldn’t matter. I lifted my eyes and found Fran carefully watching me.

“Can we outrun them?”

“Yes,” she replied grimly.

I opened the comms and wet my lips. “Turner, I currently have Starscream’s entire arsenal of ordinance targeting one of your ships. I don’t want this”—I skewed a glance at Fran, who sat as pale and quiet as I’d ever seen her—“but you need to withdraw.”

“Shepperd, where’s Ade?”

He sounded like the kind of guy I didn’t want to fuck with, like someone who’d hold a grudge and would take the death of his sister pretty damn personally.

“She’s high.” I winced as my voice caught. Hopefully he’d think it was interference. “We had a wild time after we took the freighter. You know what it’s like. I tried to wake her when we saw you were incoming.”

I fired one of Starscream’s missiles and watched it blast apart next to the Cande vessels. “A warning shot, Turner. Back off, so we don’t have to make it personal.

“You’re a lying bastard, Captain Shepperd, and you’re about to make the last mistake of your wretched little life.”

“They’re firing, Captain.” Fran reached up and dragged the obs screen closer to her. “But not at us.”

“At the freighter?”

“At something on the freighter—Shit. The cargo I ditched. The explosives!”

Fran grabbed the controls and reversed all engines just as the blast erupted outside our obs window. The explosion rolled over the freighter. Broiling fire spewed through the vessel, devouring it whole. A blast filled Starscream’s bridge with the kind of blinding light that would burn through your retinas.

I deployed the blast shield just as the wave hit. “Hang on.”

The shockwave slammed into Starscream, jolting through the ship and throwing everything sideways. Metal groaned and complained in a god-awful cacophony. Starscream was tearing herself apart at the seams. If she lost integrity, we wouldn’t know it; it’d be over in a blink. It’d sure solve a few of my problems.

Fran rode the wave, then punched Starscream away from the worst of it and kept right on sailing into the black.

“No tails,” she announced once we’d blasted deep into the system. “I’ve deployed the buoys. Should be enough to fool them and get us away.”

I sat in silence, numb and empty. My freighter, my ticket back in with the Nine, was gone. I’d killed a woman. My second had stabbed me, and I was fairly certain if I didn’t stop myself from bleeding out, nobody else would bother. When had it gone so wrong?

“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered.

It was #1001’s voice that found me. “Captain, you’ve lost a great deal of blood. You’re also going into psychological and hypovolemic shock.”

Her words … so fucking precise. So empty.

I stared, eyes half closed, at the flightdash. I should have been angry, furious even, but I wasn’t. I didn’t feel a thing. Maybe I could just close my eyes and nothing would matter again. I stopped fighting the darkness and welcomed it instead. It was easier this way.

Chapter Sixteen: #1001

The strong smell of antiseptic tickled my nose as I entered Caleb’s cabin. Brendan was sitting forward in a chair, elbows on his knee and his hands clasped together. I wondered whether he’d been praying and whether I should leave.

“It’s all right,” he said. “He’s still sleeping. He’ll be out for a while yet.”

I darted my gaze to Caleb asleep on his bed. His even breathing and resting heart rate confirmed he was out. If he was dreaming, his face showed no signs of it. Asleep, he looked younger, almost like the Fleet Captain Caleb Shepperd in the photo pinned to the message board.

“Fran has asked to visit him.”

Bren bowed his head and slowly brushed his hands together.

“That’s not going to happen.” When he looked up, his expression had hardened. Even his warm smile seemed cooler. “She’s not coming anywhere near him. She can stay in the hold with the corpse for all I care.”

“Perhaps we should wake him? Adelina Candelario’s body needs to be dealt with. Every moment we hide in this debris field is another moment fleet and the Candelarios will have to find us.”

“He’s been through enough.” He stood and met my gaze, eye-to-eye. “Let him rest. I get the impression he doesn’t sleep much.”

“You’d do well to adhere to your own advice, Commander.”

He smiled. “Perhaps, but I’m no commander, not anymore.”

He touched my shoulder as he passed me. Just a friendly touch. He probably wasn’t aware he’d done so, but I found myself seeking out the data, and with it the sensations of the weight of his hand and the gentle squeeze of his fingers. It had been a throwaway gesture, but it had a quieting effect on me.

“I know I can trust you,” he said, half out the door, “because Caleb is an asset. Am I correct?”

“Yes.”

The commander dipped his chin in a tight nod and then left the cabin, closing the door behind him.

I sat in the commander’s chair and watched Caleb sleep. Caleb Shepperd was more than an asset to me. What I felt for the captain didn’t stem from protocols and programming, but from the nowhere spaces among my components, from the ghost in my machine, and I owned it. This odd desire to touch, to feel—I clutched it close, perhaps afraid it might one day dissolve into the datastream and no longer mean anything. When I looked at Caleb, what I felt—the good, the bad, the fear—was real.

Caleb’s left arm lay draped over his chest, while his right rested at his side. With his face turned toward me, I could see precisely where his shallow smiles had cut lines into his cheeks. I trailed my gaze lower, over the musculature of his shoulder and his chest, where the blanket didn’t cover him, and down his arm.

I reached out and touched the backs of his, gently brushing my fingertips across his warm skin. There had been a time when he’d held my hand in his, and he’d squeezed it tightly as if the gesture had meant something. His touch had meant something to the me before. I shuffled forward, to the edge of the seat, and closed his hand in mine. This touch was different from the one I remembered. My synthetic skin absorbed the feel of him and translated it into data, but it was data I cherished and rolled around my processes the way someone might savor a fine wine. I took pleasure in it.

“I thought I’d killed you,” I said.

His chest rose and fell, but otherwise, he continued to sleep. He couldn’t hear me.

“And it hurt. It hurt in places where it doesn’t make any sense for a synthetic to feel pain.” I spoke softly, quietly, almost whispering. I wasn’t sure I really wanted him to hear the words, but I needed to speak them. “I was wrong to hurt you, to blame you. You didn’t kill me. He—”

The truth lodged in my throat and wouldn’t move. I’d find a way to tell him, but not yet.

“I was wrong about many things. I didn’t understand, but I do now. There are no more orders save my own. I don’t know if I’m real, or if I’m one man’s wish or another’s programming. I don’t know what I was made for, and I don’t know if I can trust what I feel. I care for two things: self-preservation, and that you see the truth of me. Whatever that may be.”

I paused and listened to the quiet settle around me. He slept on, not hearing a word.

“You’re afraid of me, and you should be. Everyone should be afraid of me, of us—the one thousand. I think something terrible is already in motion. I feel it, the way I feel these whispered dreams. I know it, but I can’t say why.” I let my hand slip from his and stood.

I would stay with Captain Shepperd and his ship; it was the most efficient way of avoiding the authorities while James worked to fix me. Maybe Haley’s memories would claim me, or maybe my programming would bury them. Perhaps the male synthetic—whose number was irrelevant—would find me. There are other ways to stop you.

I turned away from Caleb and opened the cabin door to find Brendan, arms crossed and leaning against the wall. He waited for me to speak, but I had nothing left to say to him or Caleb. I moved to step past him.

“One Thousand And One?” He paused, considering his words. “You knew I was listening?”

“Yes.” I didn’t face him, waiting for him to say whatever was on his mind.

“I think you’ll be good for him. He needs someone who isn’t afraid to stand up to him. It brings the good in him to the surface.”

“Assuming there’s any good left, Commander.”

Chapter Seventeen: Caleb

I held the pistol to Fran’s head while Bren knotted cables around her wrists. We’d tried asking nicely for her to tie herself up, but that had failed when she’d made a grab for my gun. I was fucking finished with asking nicely, and finished with her. The wound in my back still throbbed despite Bren patching me up. Now, a few days after fleeing the Candes’ airspace, it was time to ditch unnecessary cargo.

I gripped Fran’s shoulder and marched her down Starscream’s ramp. Outside, the orange Asgard skies burned over the entire forest as if the prison were ablaze. It wasn’t, unfortunately.

We’d used Ade’s clearance codes to get back into Asgard’s airspace undetected. There was no knowing how long those codes would last, but I didn’t plan on staying any longer than necessary, but Fran was.

I marched her several meters away from the ship and shoved her forward.

She whipped her head around and came at me like a snarling, rabid dog. “You can’t do this!”

“I’m doing it.” I lifted the pistol, stopping her in her tracks. “Don’t make me shoot you. You really don’t wanna be wounded when night falls.”

I backed up onto the ramp and stopped beside my brother. He didn’t agree with dumping a fleet commander on Asgard. I’d have been more surprised if he had agreed. #1001 and Doctor Lloyd watched from farther back inside the hold. Knowing #1001, she’d see this as a perfectly acceptable means of eliminating the enemy. I wasn’t sure about the doctor yet, or what he thought of me and my methods, and didn’t give a fuck.

“Why don’t you just kill me now?” Fran snarled.

I lifted my chin. “I don’t want to kill you, Fran.”

“You might as well. Leaving me here, tied up? It’s a death sentence. You know it.”

I plucked her exceedingly sharp fucking dagger—the one she’d recently used to try and separate my ribs with—from my belt. I should hate her.

I pressed the tip of the dagger into a finger and embraced the spark of pain. If I could have turned the dagger on myself to carve out the guilt rotting my insides, I would’ve.

I didn’t want to leave Fran on Asgard. I could even appreciate Fran’s work—one fucked-up human being to another—but she’d left me no choice. More guilt piled on until I could almost taste it. It tasted like iron, like Ade’s home, like blood.

I tossed the dagger at her feet. “This isn’t about wanting to kill you, Fran. If I wanted you dead, I’d have done it already. This is me telling you not to fuck with me or my ship, because I take that kind of shit personally.”

“Coward. Just shoot me now and be done with it.” I pulled the lever to close Starscream’s ramp and held Fran’s burning gaze as the doors closed. The anger fell away from her face, her expression crumpling like paper.

“Cale, you can’t do this. The last time—” She wet her lips and staggered forward. “The last time—I need the hit. I can’t be here. You’re killing me.”

Her green eyes kept pleading even as her words failed. The hold doors clanged shut.

My crew—if you could call them that—didn’t dare say a fucking word to me as I left the hold, returned to the bridge, and blasted Starscream away from Asgard, leaving behind the best fucking nine-systems pilot there was.

“What’s she doing?” I crossed my arms and watched #1001 from the hold doorway. She’d made herself comfortable by sitting in the center of the empty cargo hold—in her gray fleet sweats, with her knees drawn up—and blowing bubbles from a kid’s bottle of bubbles. I’d seen a lot of shit in the nine systems and very little had left me speechless, but I had no words to explain why a reincarnated woman was blowing bubbles in my cargo hold.

The young Doctor Lloyd stood a few strides in front of me, scribbling notes. In the last week, he’d rarely taken his eyes off her, and his glances hadn’t all been clinical. If there was something I was an expert in, it was lusting after shit I couldn’t have. I wasn’t sure whether he was hoping for more from her or just admiring the beauty in her synthetic construction, but I told myself I didn’t care either way.

I was getting pretty damn good at lying to myself.

“She’s calculating the odds of their construction and examining the mathematical structure of the bubbles.”

I frowned. “Explain that in smuggler-speak.”

The doctor glanced back and smiled. It wasn’t a smile that pitied the idiot, but one of relief; now he’d get to explain the reasons behind his excitement and what kept him constantly bouncing around my fucking ship, leeching enthusiasm. It was fucking annoying. He was fucking annoying. But #1001 had demanded he stick around if I wanted her to, which I did.

Having made the Candes’ hit list, we had to take the jobs no other fucker wanted, which meant I needed the synth by my side. She’d made a great deterrent against those clients who’d tried to double cross me during the past week—which was all of them. She’d broken the arm of a guy who’d attempted to swindle me out of my ten percent, and had stabbed another one in the hand when he’d copped a feel in a market. She didn’t take any bullshit. It was almost like having Fran back, only #1001 actually followed my orders.

Thinking of Fran killed my smile. She’d survive Asgard; she was too fucking stubborn not to. I’d given her chances. Her exile wasn’t my fault. Ade, losing the freighter, Fran? Not my fault. Over and over, I told myself the same thing, but even the whiskey-soaked nights didn’t wash away the guilt. #1001’s ice-cold presence didn’t help either. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I had plenty of them haunting my ship.

“She has episodes where the data floods her system,” the doctor explained, tugging my wandering thoughts back to the hold, “and she struggles to filter the important data among that which she can discard. It’s a fault we—I mean, the er … the Chitec technicians experienced in some of the earlier synthetic models.…”

He saw my eyes starting to glaze over.

“Anyway, it’s a problem and it started when we fled Janus. I think something happened to her there, something she’s prohibited from sharing with us. It’s conflicting with her protocols, causing her to malfunction.”

“Okay, I get that, but bubbles?” They drifted about my hold, catching the light—serene and hypnotic, fleeting and fragile.

“She found the bottle at the last port.”

I frowned. “And what? She likes bubbles?”

“Yes. No, I—She uses the isoperimetric problem to help streamline her processes. That, and various mathematical obstacles, such as the evolution of a bubble cluster. We tried counting Starscream’s panels, then the rivets and grates, but after a few days, she pretty much knew every inch of this ship and it was no longer a challenge. The bubbles work, because their production, structure, and tension are complex, for the most part. Then there’s the element of refraction. The colors seen in a soap bubble arise from the interference of light reflecting off the front and back surfaces of the thin soap film. Depending on the thickness of the film, different colors interfere constructively and destructively. She attempts to anticipate the color.”

I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, but he seemed to be enjoying himself. “It helps, yeah?”

“Yes, at the moment, but …” He glanced at her.

She had her back to us, but she’d be listening. She was always listening, watching, learning, and appearing out of fucking nowhere when I thought I was alone.

“I’m concerned this technique won’t keep her processes organized indefinitely. She may start breaking down, mentally.”

“What do you need to fix her?” She was terrifying enough already. At the first sign of her going loco, I was ditching her—no hesitations. I’d waited with Fran, given her chances. I wasn’t getting burned again.

“I have a list of parts.” He patted his pockets. “In Fra—my cabin. I left a copy with you. Yesterday in fact.”

“I filed it, in the trash.”

The synth’s bubbles sailed higher. #1001 cocked her head. Her silvery hair stroked the top of her shoulder, and I wondered what it would be like to run my fingers through her hair. She’d probably break my wrist if I tried.

“But for my next job, I’ll need her reflexes, and I don’t want her malfunctioning on me.”

“You have a job?” He gaped at me as if I’d told him I had a third eye.

“Do you think I just fucking run this ship so I can call myself Captain and get laid?”

“Well, no. I thought you were a criminal.”

I smiled. He didn’t. Doctor Lloyd was cute, and my smile never failed to frighten him, which was ironic, considering he spent all his spare time working with a machine that could snap his neck as easily as click her fingers.

“I’m whatever someone pays me to be. Learn fast, doctor. If you want to send credits back to that sick sister of yours, you’d better start making yourself useful. You’re in my world now, where the black will chew you up and nobody will ever find your body.” I pushed away from the door. “If the synth can quantify bubbles, she can count casino cards. I’m taking her to Lyra, right after my next payload.”

“I’m not sure that’s ethical, Captain.”

Like I’d said, he was cute and had lots to learn if he wanted to survive on my ship.

The words on the page blurred and swam in front of my eyes. I took another drink, let the smooth whiskey burn all the way down, and checked the dates on the old-world, flip-style calendar resting on Starscream’s flightdash. The numbers hadn’t changed and neither had the pages, paragraphs, lines, or words the code led to. I’d been right the first time, and I was right on this, the third time checking. Still, it didn’t hurt to check again, or maybe ignore it entirely. I had a hold full of street-ready phencyl and a few jobs lined up. Maybe I didn’t need the Nine.

I flicked my gaze out of the obs window and into the endless black. Right, because this is the life I want: a nobody, nowhere, with nothing, being hunted like an animal and running like a fucking coward.

“What are you doing?”

I lifted the paperback without looking behind me at Bren and waggled it over my shoulder. “Reading.”

“Romance?”

“It’s not a fucking crime.”

He must have missed the fuck-off tone in my voice, because he turned Fran’s flight chair around and lowered himself into it. Though he was wearing a gray roll-neck sweater, he still managed to look like a fleet commander on shore leave, even though he’d been rattling around Starscream for nigh on two weeks. Even the synth had let her hair down, but not Bren. Fuck no.

He regarded the flightdash and cringed. “Caleb-Joe, this bridge is a mess.”

I craned my fingers over my glass and stared out of the window at nothing. If he called me by that name one more fucking time, I’d punch him in the face.

“What’s your purpose for drifting in the Niflheim system?”

“I have my reasons.” I wet my lips with whiskey. The bottle had been of a more expensive vintage. I’d picked it up with a few other parcels when we’d docked midflight with another smuggling ship to take on board the hot phencyl to avoid the port authorities.

Bren’s presence simmered beside me. I already knew what he was going to say. I was a wreck, the ship was a wreck, we needed vital repairs, supplies were low, so was our credit account, and we couldn’t afford the whiskey I was drowning myself in. Fuck him.

“I know.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.” I could feel his disapproval like a brewing storm. In the two weeks since I’d left Fran behind, my brother had barely said more than a few sentences. At least Fran had told me exactly what she’d been thinking, even if most of it had been lies. Bren just glowered as if he’d be doing a better job as captain—and he fucking would be too.

I took another drink and another. Again the words on the page blurred. Again they made up the same message from the Nine. Drinking myself unconscious wouldn’t change the message. I shouldn’t even have been in the flight chair. I wasn’t fit to pilot Starscream. I wasn’t fit for anything. And now the Nine wanted me back, but what they were asking, after everything that had happened, I couldn’t.

“I think you need professional help.”

I laughed. I mean, I laughed so fucking hard it hurt, and then, when I got a look at Bren’s deadpan face, I laughed some more.

“There ain’t no professional help in-the-black,” I managed to say. “You think I can make an appointment with a shrink on some fleet-infested port somewhere, tell them what I’ve done, and I’ll be right as the stars?”

I tossed the dog-eared paperback onto the dash and kicked back in my seat, drink in hand. “I deal drugs and weapons, and people pay me to fix whatever the fuck they want fixed. Sometimes it’s simple, sometimes it ain’t. Sometimes it’s beating the shit out of some fucker, sometimes it’s warning fleet assholes to pay for their fucking whores or they’ll find themselves with no more junk to enjoy. Sometimes it’s dirty, messy, fucked-up shit. I’ll do anything for credit.”

He flinched, and I tipped my drink in salute. “Any-fucking-thing.”

Interestingly, my words hurt him more than they did me.

The steel in his eyes wasn’t going away. “You killed a woman.”

“She wasn’t the first.” Guilt twisted like a knife in my gut. “And it was an accident.”

“Francisca wasn’t an accident.”

My heart stuttered in my chest, clutching and holding my breath.

“She ain’t dead,” I bit back. The foxes, the drug withdrawal, the growlers—fuck knew there were plenty of things that could have killed her on that rock, but she was alive. I wouldn’t let myself think otherwise.

“She’ll live just to piss me off,” I mumbled.

“You can’t see it, but I can. The young doctor won’t say anything because he thinks you’ll kill him, but he sees it too. The synth most certainly sees right through your bullshit act.”

“The synth? She doesn’t need to tell me how fucked up I am, Bren, and neither do you.”

I know it, same as I know Starscream’s in trouble unless we get some decent jobs, or I take the Nine’s recent offer, the one sitting in my lap.

“You’re the fixer, but nobody is going to fix you. You must realize that?”

A smile skimmed my lips. “Nice. You can put that on my gravestone.”

He sighed and shook his head. “I’m not staying on Starscream.”

“Good.” Go find some charity mission on the fringes to polish your halo with.

“If you don’t stop, if you don’t get help, you’ll—” He paused and swallowed the next words. I heard them go down hard. “I can’t watch you do this to yourself.”

I ground my teeth, knowing exactly what he’d been about to say. “I’ll what?”

“I … I just think nobody would blame you if you stepped back for a while and got yourself some help.”

I had all the help I needed in the bottle sitting right beside me.

“Say what you were going to fucking say.” I looked right at him for the first time since he’d entered the bridge, and he glared right back at me. “Say it.”

“You’re drunk and looking for a fight.”

“I’ll end up like Dad, right?” If I hadn’t been too drunk to stand, I’d have swung for him.

His lips turned down and he turned his head. Seconds later, he pushed from the chair and left the bridge.

I snorted a laugh. He was a coward for not saying it, and he was wrong.

The whiskey sat uneasily in my gut. I pressed my hand to my mouth and dropped my head back, fighting to ground my spinning thoughts.

Fuck him. I wasn’t that bad—not yet. I downed the whiskey and retrieved the tatty paperback. The Nine always paid well, and they’d never lied or tried to screw me over. After the freighter fuck-up and earning myself a place on the Candes’ Most Wanted list, I’d resigned myself to scraping the bottom of the barrel for paying jobs. Then the delivery had come in with the phencyl pickup: old style romance novels and a calendar marked with specific dates. The Nine wanted me back, and I had exactly what they needed on board. Easy credits.

After checking the coded message one last time, I rubbed some of the drunkenness off my face and sighed. I could do this. The Nine might help me with my Cande problem and the credits would definitely help my empty account. I didn’t need to know more, like why the Nine wanted me to do this, or what would happen after. Curiosity was a killer.

Keep it simple. Get away clean.

All I had to do was deliver the goods.

I read the message one last time:

‘Give Us Hail Lee’

Give us Haley.

To be continued on Girl From Above 3: Trapped. Coming soon. Don’t miss the release by signing up here.

Also by Pippa DaCosta

The Veil Series

Wings of Hope ~ The Veil Series Prequel Novella

Beyond The Veil (#1)

Devil May Care (#2)

Darkest Before Dawn (#3)

Drowning In The Dark (#4)

Ties That Bind (#5)

Get your free e-copy of ‘Wings Of Hope’ by signing up to Pippa’s mailing list, here.

New Adult Urban Fantasy

City of Fae

City of Fae, #2 (Coming 2016)

Science-Fiction

Girl From Above Book #1: Betrayal

Girl From Above Book #2: Escape

Girl From Above #3: Trapped (Coming soon)

About the Author

Born in Tonbridge, Kent in 1979, Pippa's family moved to the South West of England where she grew up among the dramatic moorland and sweeping coastlands of Devon & Cornwall. With a family history brimming with intrigue, complete with Gypsy angst on one side and Jewish survivors on the other, she draws from a patchwork of ancestry and uses it as the inspiration for her writing. Happily married and the mother of two little girls, she resides on the Devon & Cornwall border.

Sign up to her mailing list here.

- @pippadacosta

- pippadacosta

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