Rapture Read online

  “I don’t see why you need me to do it,” she protested. “I told you I’m straight. Me and my ship are legit. Find someone else.”

  “There isn’t nobody else who knows the back star lanes or the Rims like you do,” the thug pointed out. “And nobody else who still owes Wethmore anything.”

  The mention of the captain of that godsforsaken freighter roused Brya’s ire. “I don’t owe him a godsdamn thing,” she hissed. She tried to extricate herself from the man, whose hands were planted on either side of her head, holding her in place against the wall of the station’s airlock corridor. Her small ship was docked just a few meters away. Maybe she could make a run for it.

  She stole a look at the man menacing over her. He was at least a foot taller than she, and despite his unkempt appearance, he looked fit and strong. He could easily chase her down.

  She hadn’t seen Wethmore for nearly two years, not since her husband’s death. She had left the bastard captain’s employ and bought her own ship, the Rapture, and had been struggling to keep things legal in her time working for herself. It was hard—it was so much less profitable hauling spare parts across the galaxy instead of ungraded fuel or other things less savory. The Rapture’s refueling at Karys Station had set her back a shitload of credits, and she was down to a few measly credits between now and the next shipping job, whenever that may be.

  “Wethmore might disagree,” the thug said. Brya looked around the corridor, praying for someone to appear so he might run off and leave her alone. “He’s still pissed that you bailed on that last job from the Rims.”

  Fear and indignation gave way to anger. “Do you know what that last job was? He was transporting slave labor from Kela-4 to his body shop in the Alliance! I was finally able to buy myself out of that life. Of course I bailed!” And Dav had just died, although even if he had survived that accident she would have left him anyway. But she didn’t tell that to the thug.

  The thug finally removed his hands from either side of her head and shrugged. “No different than anything else you did for him.”

  “I’m sick of that life, okay? Tell Wethmore no, I’m not working for him.” She held up her left hand, where the last two fingers had been severed at the second knuckle. “See this? I’ve already paid for leaving Wethmore’s operation. Fuck off.” She started to walk away, but the man grabbed her and pinned her against the wall again. Brya refused to cow and forced herself to meet him eye to eye.

  “He says he’ll turn you in if you don’t,” the man said smugly. “That’ll be worse that losing a couple of fingers. He knows everything you’ve ever done. You want to reconsider?” He released her arms but didn’t back away.

  Brya shuddered. How Wethmore had escaped being caught was so far beyond her, but justice could never be counted on in any part of space.

  “He has everything you’ve ever done for him,” the man continued. “Your name is on every manifest, he has your bio-code imprinted on every part of that ship. You’d be fucked, Dennir, and you know it. You couldn’t even go back to your backwards home planet to hide.”

  He had her there. She couldn’t go back to Ra’lani under any circumstances.

  “What is it?” she demanded. “What would I be moving?” He opened his mouth to reply, but she held up a hand to silence him. “I’m not dealing with people, weapons, or drugs.”

  “Fuel,” he replied simply. “Ungraded petrik. Just take it to a planet in the Outer Rims. We’ll send you more instructions later. Your ship has a fortified cargo hold, so you shouldn’t worry about explosions.” He smirked at her. “Although after the untimely demise of Dav, you’d think you’d have those protections in place anyway.”

  Brya itched to clock him one in the jaw, but that would only make things worse.

  “What do I get?” she countered.

  “You don’t go to prison.”

  “I want something else. I could be transporting spare parts for credits. I need credits, too.”

  He shrugged. “You’ll be compensated. Wethmore knows you and knows you’re broke. If you do a good job like a proper little freighter captain, he’ll transfer some to your ship’s account as soon as it’s loaded up with the petrik.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “As soon as we leave the corridor,” he said. “You spend another day at Karys, play like you’re having a quick holiday from the demands of the shipping business, and then leave tomorrow. Your manifest will tell you everything else you need to know and we’ll take care loading your ship.”

  Brya eyed him. “And this will be the last time Wethmore ever contacts me?”

  “Promise. He doesn’t like you very much, either.”

  Undoubtedly. Brya tried to school her expression to the one of hard-boiled freighter captain and nodded. “I’ll do it.”

  Like she had a choice in the matter.

  ****

  Kai didn’t know what to do with himself. Stupid furlough, he thought. Then, stupid me for getting shot in the first place.

  He had had enough medical care on his injured leg and wrist than he cared to remember, and they were still tender. He doubted his leg would ever be the same, because three laser hits meant he would always have a bit of a limp and it would act up in any humidity. But for now, he just wanted to be able to take a few steps without wincing in pain. It was embarrassing. His wrist was mostly healed and he would be returning to a desk job when his medical leave ended. His days on battlefields were likely over.

  He would already be at his new desk job, pending his reenlistment as his Fleet contract was nearly over, but the Fleet had urged him to take a few weeks furlough to recover. Kai had refused, and the urging became an order. A lieutenant, no matter how talented he was with anything related to circuitry, couldn’t be taking breaks every hour to change his skin regenerators and get local painkillers. It would only get worse unless he took some time off to heal.

  Kai had argued every step of the way, but in the end, the Fleet won, and he packed a duffel and headed to Karys Station, the epicenter of Alliance space, for a few days.

  Back where his life started over, so many years ago.

  He checked into a decent hotel when he arrived at Karys, a small room with a vidscreen, fully stocked replicator, and a water shower. The Starspot, like all new ships, used a laser cleansing protocol instead of water in their bathrooms, and Kai wanted to treat himself.

  He wondered if he would be allowed back on board the Starspot if he promised to stay in his quarters.

  Kai finally resigned himself to having a few drinks in Mack’s, a Fleet favorite. He picked a seat at the bar, only half-full at this early hour in the evening, and nursed a beer. Why was he feeling so withdrawn? Karys Station used to be one of his favorite places, and had always been a bittersweet place for him. It was where he got his start when he fled to the Alliance from Ra’lani, where literally whole new worlds had opened up and opportunity beckoned.

  It was where he had said goodbye to Brya.

  Not a day had passed since then where he hadn’t thought of her, even if it was only for a moment or two. He had met up with her twice by chance at different spaceports while he was in the academy—the ship he had been assigned to and the freighters she had been working on had stopped for refueling—but other than that, he hadn’t seen her in ten years. He had done some discreet poking around throughout the years when got his hands on consoles and found that she had vague connections to a suspicious freighter captain, but nothing damning on her. Brya’s trail had stopped cold about five years ago, as though she had dropped out of the galaxy, and that scared him a little. The lack of obituaries or news stories about her death had only marginally reassured him.

  Still, he wondered how she was faring.

  A minor commotion at the bar’s entrance snapped him back to reality. A group of well-dressed women, one wearing a gaudy, spiky tiara whose fake gemstones spelled out Birthday Girl, burst through the pub’s doors, giggling, loudly talking about what they wanted to order, an
d just how much fun Fleet hotspots were.

  Don’t sit here, Kai willed them. I’m not in the mood. Which was also uncharacteristic of him—usually he had great luck with women at Mack’s.

  The gods told him no, and they took seats at the bar around him. He stared into his beer glass as they ordered drinks garnished with little umbrellas.

  “Hi,” said one of them. She was tall, with a deep tan that indicated she wasn’t someone stuck on a ship all day. Someone with money, or her parents’ money.

  “Hey,” said Kai, and managed a small smile. Go, please.

  “I’ve seen you here before,” she said. “You’re Fleet, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Where’s the rest of your crew?”

  “I’m on medical leave,” Kai said.

  That elicited melodramatic gasps from the other women. “What happened?” the birthday girl purred.

  “It was an accident. I was hit with a laser rifle.” Once upon a time, Kai would have used that to suggest playing Doctor.

  “So you’re a strong soldier, then,” said the tanned woman. She leaned a little closer to him and he could smell her perfume over the scent of spilled beer characteristic to Mack’s.

  Kai chanced a glance at her. She held her glass daintily in one hand, a sultry look on her face. She knew exactly how stupid she sounded, but it must have worked for her in the past.

  “Lieutenant,” he finally replied. “I work in communications.” There was no getting rid of them without being rude, so he leaned back in his seat and tried to summon the old Kai. “What do you ladies do?”

  They tittered like he had just said something funny. “Stasia Bleek,” the tanned woman said, like that name should ring a bell for Kai.

  Her friends looked shocked at the lack of recognition. “She’s the fashion designer,” the birthday girl said. “I’m Nori, and there’s Glad, Vivian, and Mia.” She pointed at each person in their group, and Kai quickly forgot who was who.

  It didn’t matter, did it?

  “Lieutenant Kai Toric,” he said. “Currently assigned to the Starspot.”

  “It doesn’t stop by very often,” commented Stasia, another inane remark.

  Kai felt suffocated. He had to get out of here. This was not the night for picking up Fleet groupies. Not now or maybe ever again. “No, it doesn’t,” he said. “It doesn’t have to refuel as often as the older ships.” He drained his glass and stood up, pasting a wince of pain on his face. “I’m sorry, ladies,” he said. “My leg is killing me. I have to head back to my hotel for the rest of the night.” They cooed half-hearted protests, but he only smiled and shrugged. He laid a few credits on the bar, enough to cover the group for another round of drinks. “Have one more,” he said. “On me. I’m sure I’ll see you later.” They giggled and he winked lasciviously. Stasia arched an eyebrow at him, and he knew immediately she didn’t buy his story. “Happy birthday, Nori.”

  He remembered to walk out of the pub with an exaggerated limp. Once he was back in the commercial sector’s carnival of lights and noise, he quickened his pace, heading to his hotel on the other side of the station and ten decks up. He leg twinged and he looked for the closest moving sidewalk to take him across, but it was full with a lineup snaking behind it. He sighed and kept on, looking for another one.

  Maybe it was a mistake trying to take a vacation on Karys. It wasn’t just being blindsided by a birthday party—he’d already run into a former lover and a couple of one-night stands, one of whom had vowed to stick a knife in his ribs if he ever laid eyes on her again—but the station had been looking different since he arrived on his own. For the first time, he was bothered by the constant noise, and the bright lights and vendors’ overflowing stalls now appeared cheap and tawdry. If Kai didn’t know any better, he would suspect the full-time residents of being robots programmed to be cheery and flirty to the point of being obnoxious. First thing tomorrow morning, Kai was booking a trip to one of the leisure worlds at the station’s travel agency.

  A commotion a few meters away held up the crush of people swarming along the commercial strip. Kai fought back a flare of irritation and picked his way around, seeing a pair of men, drunk by the sound of it, starting a fight. And people were shouting about bets.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  Kai shook his head and tried to get out of the crowd, but it looked like he was stuck here for now. He heard a feminine voice calling, “Excuse me … I’m sorry, it’s an emergency, thank you,” and a slim form forced her way through the throng of people, smacking right into Kai.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It happens,” Kai replied, and glanced down at her. She held his gaze for a second, then her lavender eyes blinked and widened.

  “Kai?” she said hoarsely.

  “Brya?”

  Shock suffused her features. “Kai,” she repeated. Quickly, she turned away and kept forcing herself through the people.

  What was she doing?

  Kai followed her. If she noticed, she didn’t make any indication of it, and he didn’t want to alert her in case she took off running. Finally, they got through the knot of people, and in front of a perfume vendor he grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. She shrieked, the sound swallowed by the roar of voices and thump of music. Her fear-glazed eyes fixed on his face, but Kai had seen that look before in combat. She was seeing something that wasn’t there anymore.

  “Brya!” he shouted over the noise.

  She blinked and returned to the present. “Let me go!” she snapped. “If you don’t, then you’re stuck with me.” She wrenched her arm away. She looked around, but the only person who took any notice of them was the perfume vendor, who shouted something in one of the Alliance languages Kai didn’t speak and shoved a fistful of samples at Brya. She waved him away.

  “Stuck with you?” Kai said. “What do you mean? What kind of trouble are you in?”

  “I’m not in trouble,” Brya replied, and with shaking hands straightened her faded blue flight jacket. There was something odd about her fingers, and she caught Kai’s curious look and shoved them in her pockets. She looked away. “It’s nothing,” she said.

  Kai’s minor empathic sense picked up fear, so palpable it vibrated. “Brya,” he said gently. “If you’re in trouble, I can help you.”

  She shook her head. “No, you can’t,” she replied. In the neon light offered in the darkened sector, he saw the exhaustion and stress in her face. Her lips were drawn in a tight line and there were shadows under her eyes. Her dark-blonde hair hung crookedly in curly tufts around her face and was streaked with faded colors, as though she had poured bottles of dye through it. She was thinner than she should be, exacerbated by the baggy jacket and pants she wore. The pant cuffs pooled around her ankles, half obscuring her beat-up black boots. She was as far from ex-nobility as she could get, and looked far younger than the thirty years Kai knew she was.

  Kai tried another tack. “At least let me get you a drink or something,” he offered. “Or dinner. Are you hungry?” He tried to smile. “I was just thinking about you today, actually.” And every day for the last decade.

  Her gaze darted around the commercial strip as though she were looking for someone. “Okay,” she relented. “A drink. Somewhere quiet.”

  Chapter Three

  Kai led Brya through the station with a confidence she had never seen when they were newlywed teenagers. “Where are we going?” she asked nervously as they boarded a lift. She was afraid to run into one of Wethmore’s henchmen, especially since she was in the company of a Fleet officer, if that was what Kai still did. He was wearing civilian clothes, dark-gray pants and a black sweater. She couldn’t see any sign of a weapon, doubling her anxiety.

  “A quiet place near my hotel,” he replied, then added, “a Fleet place.”

  Great. He was still with the Fleet. She didn’t want to think about what Wethmore would do if he saw her hanging around a military establishment, and never mind that there wa
s a good-sized outpost on the lower decks. Wethmore didn’t give a shit about that. He wouldn’t just take her fingers this time.

  They ended up in a nearly deserted hole in the wall on the ninth deck, where Brya had never ventured on her trips to Karys. It was too far out of her league: too upscale, too clean, too expensive. She kept her head down and avoided looking at the uniformed military milling around this sector and didn’t raise it until she and Kai took seats at the back of the restaurant.

  “What do you want?” he asked. The question was amiable, but she heard the authority in his voice. His demeanor matched the dominating figure he made now. He wasn’t the skinny kid with fashionably overgrown hair he had been on Ra’lani. He had grown up, and in another lifetime Brya would have found him attractive. Hell, she did already, but this wasn’t the time. Don’t think about that, she willed herself.

  “Just a beer,” she said. “Please.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure that I definitely need something alcoholic right now,” she said peevishly.

  “I mean, do you want something to eat?” He eyed her across the table, taking in the clothes that ballooned around her. She was hungry. The replicator on her ship had died a few weeks ago and she had been living off whatever she could pick up on stations and spaceports.

  “Yes,” she said, chastised.

  He gestured to the menu pad on the table. “Get whatever you want,” he said. She looked at the prices and blanched. “It’s my treat,” he continued, eyebrow raised at her reaction.

  She tabbed in an order for stew, deliberately using her right hand and keeping the left under the table. She couldn’t help but smile a little in anticipation. It would be her first hot meal in a long time. Kai ordered his own food and thoughtfully regarded her across the small table.

  “So,” he said. “Am I stuck with you? I’m on medical leave, so I have the time.”