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

He lowered his voice. “It’ll be on the newschannels tonight, but the Fleet detected an encrypted tight-beam transmission to the Webward Pearls.”

“I don’t understand. Someone’s calling in pirates?” The Pearls had harbored raiders for years, small lightsail gunships that hopped between the system’s dozens of miniature moons faster than Fleet fighters could follow. “What does that have to do with Casne?”

“Not her in particular and not pirates at all. The Pearls are where the remnants of Ceebee forces are supposed to have ended up after Hedgehome.”

“But all the Ceebees are locked up in . . .” Triz rocked back on her heels. “Someone’s smuggling messages out of Justice.”

“The Fleet might have some questions for you,” Belas said, and shrugged apologetically. His stylus flicked up and down between his fingers, tapping out an anxious rhythm against the countertop. “Considering you paid a visit to Justice recently, under less-than-official circumstances.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess they would.” Triz would deal with that when it came up. Along with the fallout from whatever more dangerous plans she enacted in the meantime. She cleared her throat. “I actually came up here to talk to you, though, Belas. I wanted to know, uh . . . what they’ll do with Casne if she’s convicted. Where she’ll go.” How they would take her there and who would be holding the keys.

Belas set the stylus carefully down, ending its staccato song. “I have a long queue, Triz. I can’t really get into the particulars.” He folded his hands. “But if you would like to meet in the Terraria before my shift starts tomorrow morning, I would be happy to explain more to you. The greenery is a very soothing environment for difficult discussions.”

And a private one. “Yes. That would be nice. I appreciate it.”

“Of course.” He gave her a white-lipped smile. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a chance to just catch up, too, despite being neighbors! I have some pictures my daughter sent me from her new dig site on Sanishar. It’s pretty far out—part of the Sei Worldhold, in fact, so she had to get special diplomatic permission to land there!”

The Sei Worldhold was the nearest government body to the systems of the Confederated Worlds. Triz might be reading too much into Belas’ intent expression and oddly stressed words, but hope unfurled inside her, too big and hot to hold for long. She thanked him again, with a tight nod, and fled Justice before she could reach a critical mass of premature optimism.

Chapter Seven

After the station lights shifted over to Third Shift, Quelian would go back to the quadhome—whatever his own thoughts on the matter, the rest of his gonmates always strictly enforced rules separating work time from home time. Kalo and Triz met at the habitation lift entrance at the appointed time, both dressed in the kind of heavy worksuits ideally suited to illicit undercover Scooper repair. They both stood silently as the lift whisked them downward, carefully looking each other in the boots. Triz racked her aching brain for something to say, anything to break the tension. Sorry for kissing you last night before asking you to give up your whole life. Or maybe: Hey, remember how you almost died two weeks ago, want to give it another shot? Or better yet—

“So,” Kalo said, and Triz jumped. “What happened with that lead of yours in Justice? Not that we’re going to need that kind of help, but the gods are more likely to smile on those who prime their engines before launch.”

“I’m going to talk to him tomorrow to see if—”

The lift shuddered around them.

Triz fell on her backside on the lift floor, the wind and the rest of the words knocked out of her. Kalo caught himself on the rail, but his head knocked against the lift wall. Triz reached out for him just as the lift lights died.

She counted heartbeats in the pitch black that now surrounded them. Darkness didn’t bother her, except when it was a symptom of something much worse. Four, five, six: there. Small crackling sounds rippled upward from the floor of the lift to the walls, as emergency release valves deprived of their signals opened. Substrate flooded the tiny tubes lining the edges of the lift, and the bioluminescent bacteria inside got busy. A faint glow began to fill the lift and Kalo’s concerned face came into focus.

“What happened?” He spat blood from a split lip. In the soft blue light, his face was strange and unfamiliar, more ghost than man. “We stopped moving?”

“Feels like it.” Triz regained her footing and moved to the door. The edges of the doors clung tightly together as she tried to pry them apart. As they were supposed to do to prevent a breach. She grunted in frustration. “I need to see where we are.”

“See? I can barely count my fingers in this light.”

“Let me save you the trouble.” She gritted her teeth and tried to wedge her fingers in between the sealed edge. “There’s ten, unless you’re even worse at riding a lift than you are flying a Skimmer.”

A massive impact rocked the lift on its rotors. Triz scrabbled for purchase against the smooth interior of the lift—what was out there? Even if an undetected asteroid had cleared defenses and hit the Hab, it wasn’t as if a storm of space-rocks could be barraging the inside. She put her back against the lift doors and braced for more.

But this time she saw Kalo, limned in blue, kick at the lift railing. The railing gave way, and Kalo ripped it away from the wall. “Thanks for the help counting. Guess you’re the brains of the operation. Now move.”

She scrambled around him as he jammed one end of the railing into the crack between the doors. His shoulders strained as he levered them apart, inch by inch. “Should you be doing that?” she objected. Head wounds and heavy labor didn’t go best hand in hand. But he answered her only with