Local Star, Aimee Ogden [ebook reader that looks like a book txt] 📗

this place. I am, and she doesn’t get to give you a bereavement day to roll around moaning.”

“Then I quit.” Triz mashed the lift call button with her knuckles and kept her back to Quelian as she waited. Better not to see his face just now. Maybe the other quadparents would try to walk her words back later; maybe they wouldn’t be able to. At this moment Triz didn’t really care one way or another. “I’ll be back for my stuff later. Right now, I’m going to go save your daughter.”

Anger or shock leached the strength from Quelian’s words. They ripped ragged out of him and fluttered helplessly, begging for Triz’s attention. “If you walk out of here now, you won’t get the wrenchworks when I kick on. I’ve got more than enough time to train up another wrench and if you don’t think there’s a dozen pups on this Hab who would jump at the chance—”

“Then I’ll take my luck waiting around to see who PubWel and the Distribution Council choose to hand the works over to.” Triz shrugged, a tight little jerk of the shoulders that cranked up her tension rather than releasing it. “If not, I’ll hitch a ride to some other Hab.” The thought of launching herself out there—out into that bottomless darkness—of long empty days unmoored from any Hab, sent a tremor down her spine.

“I like my odds,” she finished.

Something heavy crashed behind her, metal yelping against metal. “Over my dead body!”

“Maybe.” Triz tried to shrug and failed. “Or maybe the Council will redistribute early if I give them a reason to think the wrenchworks would do better under new ownership.” Finally, the lift doors opened. Triz turned as she entered.

Quelian’s eyes watered in his flushed face; she’d really pissed him off this time. Triz drank that down and found it tasted good, despite the skim of guilt floating on top.

“Remember,” Triz said. “You’re the one who walked away first. Not from the wrenchworks. From everything that really matters.”

The doors closed between them, and Triz waited until she was two levels up before she slammed both fists against the hard metal of the lift door.

Chapter Five

That night Triz used her fob to pull up a list to her tiny port screen: officers who’d served with, under, or near Casne aboard the Dailos. A few names she knew, most she didn’t. She prowled the edges of the Arcade, looking for the precise shade of gray fatigues that distinguished a Fleetie from any other random Hab resident. The first woman whose sweaty sleeve she caught outside the heliodrome track turned her away with only a few terse words. “Fleet business. Anything you’re entitled to know, you can find out in Justice.” Triz had a few terse words for her, too: the kind that had two other Fleet officers closing ranks on either side.

The next officer Triz managed to flag down had just emerged from an hour in the Cosset. Triz wasn’t used to visiting the row of pleasure-houses on the Arcade; she tried not to stare past him into the Cosset for a better look. When he stepped to the side of the busy main Arcade footwalk to speak with her, the flowery smells of tea and honey wine clung to him, as did the stronger, more intense scent of sex. The wine made him more pliable to her questioning than the last officer, and he didn’t seem to notice when Triz breathed unsubtly through her mouth.

“I mean, I didn’t see anything. I remember the Arcology blowing, but that’s hard to miss unless you’re already in a tailspin. When you’re behind the yoke, it’s best to keep an eye on what’s right ahead of you. And behind. What the whales were up to, no idea. Maybe one of the other pilots got a better peek.” He hesitated. “It doesn’t sound like the captain? But I’m not a Tactics geek, so I don’t know how well I can talk about it.”

Triz thanked him for his time and let him stagger off to other more relaxing pursuits.

She paused for a moment outside the massive window at the edge of the Arcade to watch a small squadron of Swarmers—four Skimmers flanking an oversized Arcwing—running drills just outside the Hab. Hard to imagine what it was like being out there in the darkness all the time. She didn’t even like the rare type of wrenchwork that took her outside the Hab in a vac suit to walk the wounded skin of a cargo freighter or passenger transport. Her mouth puckered with the bitter tang of resentment: not that she’d be doing any of that kind of thing any time soon, or possibly ever again.

The closest Skimmer feinted sharply toward the Hab and made her flinch and jump back from the window. What was that pilot doing? But the Skimmer stopped short of the plastiglass and she felt the gentle tink of a light touch against the Hab wall. Such a tiny sound; an unpleasant reminder of just how fragile Light Attack Swarmers really were.

“Hey, don’t worry, Lanniq’s just running drills,” a voice said, startling her. It was Saabe. E’d found her before she could press off in search of another Fleet uniform to grill. “Emergency Hab penetration, that kind of thing. Don’t worry, during drills they don’t plant real charges so this part of the Arcade shouldn’t be sucking vacuum momentarily.” Eir grin of greeting faded. “I hear you’ve been on the prowl for information.”

Triz glared at em but tagged along at eir elbow as e started walking along the Arcade’s outer path. “You think Justice and the Watch care more about getting this investigation right than I do? Especially when that’s my—” The words wife or gonmate jammed in her throat on sharp, false edges. “When it’s Casne involved? They’ve got a million high-ranking Ceebees to put on trial. They’ll broadcast those trials across the Confederated Worlds, and I’m supposed to be sure they’re doing their due diligence on