CHAPTER ONE
Raki stood on the docking bay catwalk and watched as the shuttle moved into place. When the sensors set into the metal plate on the deck lit purple, he activated the locking mechanism.
Slipstream cargo carriers usually transported a full complement of mixed shuttles and smaller craft for every voyage, but the owners of this shuttle had insisted on booking the entire ship for just themselves and their three escorts—sleek Vipe fighters with laser mounts bristling from the elongated double prongs on both front and rear. Surely an expensive venture. What would require that kind of security?
Raki wasn’t paid for his curiosity, although he suffered from it regularly. He leaned on the railing to peruse the shuttle. Paranoia made him scan his hands as he did so—Kusk hands, three fingers and a thumb, thick and covered with gray, leathery skin. He noticed a small tuft of gold fur and concentrated until it dropped away to the metal floor far beneath.
He’d been disguised for so many years that the constant scrutinizing for slips was as much a part of him as the golden fur he hid beneath his body armor. To the rest of the universe he appeared as just another homely Kusk. The hardest part to maintain wasn’t the leathery skin in place of fur; it was his legs. When he rose from every sleep cycle, he wrestled his long leg bones into submission, contracting the cells until they were almost half their normal length, relaxing the tendons to permit him to walk flat-footed instead of up on his toes. By the end of his shifts, his legs ached despite his inherent healing ability.
But it was a small price to pay for safety.
As far as Raki knew he was the last survivor of his species, victims of a cosmic genocide when he was only a child. Two foreign researchers had smuggled him off the planet amid the chaos, and raised him as they conducted their studies, hopping between planets. But in all his long life—and Carabisk were very long lived—he’d never been able to relax while in his own skin.
The slipstream carrier featured a leisure deck for visitors. He waited for the shuttle’s occupants to emerge. The vessel looked new, sleek, and fast. It belonged to Tanti merchants, and Raki wanted a glimpse of their tentacle-like fingers, bulbous heads, and slimy bodies. But when the ramp dropped, only one emerged from the shuttle, although six Arik unfolded their lithe frames from the Vipes. After a somewhat heated discussion—based on the gesticulation of the long limbs—two of the Arik took their place at the foot of the shuttle’s ramp. The four others headed for the lift. The Tanti held itself aloof from the Arik as it waited for the lift. Raki stared in fascination at the quivering flesh of its huge braincase until the doors closed.
The big ship’s engines rumbled beneath his feet as it got moving. Life on a slipstream cargo carrier tended to be boring as grut. Raki double-checked the locking mechanisms and his hands in the same scan. Kusk vision was dull compared to his own; he longed for the rich colors and clarity of his real vision. And as he took a deep breath, he fought back the usual frustration inherent in living in another’s body.
Then he heard the singing.
Well, it wasn’t exactly singing. And he wasn’t sure he was hearing it with his stunted Kusk auditory disks. It vibrated through him—a pulse of sound that made all the fur within his armor stand up on end. Was it real? If it was, where was it coming from?
Raki glanced around but nothing had changed. Across the bay, the mechanic—a particularly chunky Kusk—emerged briefly from his cubby to fetch the toolbelt hanging over the rail. Nothing in his demeanor suggested he’d heard anything. Raki watched to see that the Kusk had returned to his engines before pulling away from his console and stepping into the shadows cast from the overhead crane.
He knew the docking bay monitors didn’t penetrate this corner. Reverting to his natural form was a simple matter of letting go, the hard part was stopping the process partway. He allowed his ears to morph, becoming large, elongated triangles with distinctive, delicate antennae protruding from the pointed tips. Halting the transformation was painful. He fought the fur spreading rapidly across the gray skin. Fought, and won.
The moment his ears changed, the tone of the music deepened. He gasped as it filled him. It sang of loss and an anguish so deep it threatened to tear his own hearts in two. In response, his ear antennae spread and lengthened as though physically seeking the source, the small ovals at the tips vibrating.
Raki had never experienced such pain. Beyond the physical, this was something of the soul. He longed to find it, to fold himself around it, and make it all stop.
He caught himself just in time—he’d taken a step out of the shadows. Toward the shuttle.
Raki shoved his ears back into submission, wincing in discomfort. The sound diminished as he did so, becoming the initial vibration he’d experienced. He didn’t think that ordinary Kusk could hear it. Raki wasn’t sure it was a true sound—something about it reached beyond hearing to reverberate within him.
He strode along the catwalk to the ladder that dropped him to the deck. He had about an hour before the carrier took its place in the queue, and then another half before it entered the channel that would take it far away. Once in slipstream, everyone must be strapped into a restraint harness. Until then, he had freedom to move.
And he was going to check out that shuttle.
Within his armor, the stump of Raki’s tail twitched as he reached the lower deck. He knew he was in full view of the monitors and busied himself with inspecting the anchor points for the ships. All normal duties. But there was nothing normal about what radiated from the shuttle.
It was the source of the sound. There was no doubt.
Raki stood before a console and pretended to be checking the manifest. The ship was reputedly carrying replacement components for a renovation in Bundala sector. Was it a passenger that he sensed?
His twin hearts pounded hard. He’d spent all his life avoiding risk, hiding behind disguises. His foster parents, now long dead, had drilled it into him. Before the Carabisk were exterminated, their shapeshifting and healing abilities were in high demand. At first their services were voluntary, but as the political stability of their solar system declined, many were enslaved as espionage agents and assassins. When the system erupted into full-fledged war, his people were caught in the crossfire.
But the talents that had put them there were as much in demand now as they had been then, perhaps even more so. If anyone discovered what he was, Raki’s days of freedom would be over. He was worth more than the Vipes that were currently anchored to the deck.
All this raced through his brain as he stared at the console. Even muted, the music wove through him like a siren song. He didn’t understand its hold over him. But it was undeniable. And his response, instinctive. It drew him. He had to find the source.
But how?
You’re a shapeshifter, idiot.
Raki’s job enabled him to brush elbows with many forms of life. He’d made a study of them, and it wasn’t just a random hobby, not when his life depended on his competence to take on other forms. Carabisk had the ability to assess life at the genetic level through direct skin contact. Although part of the process was unconscious, Raki had to visually guide himself through the morph, so he’d developed a keen eye for physical detail. He’d spent many hours in the privacy of his tiny, one-cot cubby practicing alternative shapes.
He moved away from the monitors and into the shadows thrown by several large supply crates. Slipping between two of them, he stripped off his armor. Without its protective covering, he trembled with anxiety. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been out of it when not in the safety of his cubby. What was he doing? Was this worth the risk?
But the song beckoned, and his ears itched to emerge and drink it in. Unfortunately, his native form wouldn’t work for this venture, he needed to be invisible. Or the next best thing . . .
He closed his eyes and focused. They’d had a Bukka on board, once. Although not shapeshifters, their skin had the ability to camouflage with their surroundings. This Bukka had been a slave, but it accompanied its master to the leisure area. Raki had casually brushed against its skin while they helped themselves to hot, bitter cups of raanck.
Now, Raki visualized the Bukka, and his skin changed. The golden fur on his lean body dropped away as the skin became pale gray and smooth. With relief, he let his legs assume more normal proportions, but the flesh of his hands and feet split to the ankles and wrists, providing him with long, strangely articulated fingers and toes. Each ended in a disc rather than his usual claws. His tail lengthened and thickened, and his jaws shortened, giving him a flat, almost featureless face with enormous round eyes.
Only after he had all the proportions correct, did he begin to shrink. Of all the shapeshifting techniques, two were exponentially more difficult to master: adding limbs and altering size. The Bukka had two arms and legs, but it was a smaller creature. Shrinking mass involved condensing cells. Fortunately, he didn’t need to reduce himself to the size of a Bukka, but a diminished stature would help him when stealth was his goal.
He took himself down to about half his usual bulk and set his skin free.
Or free for a Bukka, anyway. The gray skin immediately altered, not just color, but texture as well. In an instant it had taken on the stippled orange surface of the storage crates. As long as he didn’t move too fast, the skin would adapt to whatever it touched.
Useful creatures, Bukka. He felt a pang for the slave he’d met. In this region of space, useful things tended to end up owned.
It took every ounce of courage Raki possessed to venture out of his hiding place. Although he often practiced changing shape, it had been many years since he’d go out as anything other than a Kusk. If he got caught like this on the ship...
He didn’t finish the thought. It was as though the song had altered something inside him. It made the paranoia and fear fade. In its place was something, or rather someone, he didn’t recognize.
And that someone scurried on all fours across the deck.
Raki’s natural form was that of a runner and leaper. This splay-legged clinging thing was foreign to him, and he struggled to master the required effort. As he moved, he kept an eye on the Arik. They trained as fighters from the time they could walk upright, and once mature, most became hired mercenaries. Long framed and leanly muscled, Arik possessed keen senses, including large, cup-shaped ears that captured any noise. Raki must not only be invisible, but silent as he advanced.
He didn’t approach directly. Instead, he used the sticky discs on his fingers and toes to attain the upper level catwalk and move along it until he was almost even with the shuttle. Then he climbed onto the railing and stared down at his target.
He may have practiced being a Bukka in his cubby, but now he must move like one, and Raki had no idea if his new form could make that leap. He took a moment to alter the muscles in his legs from the Bukka norm, coiling the tendons like a spring and adding calf and thigh muscles for power. Then he launched himself.
Straight as an arrow, he flew across the docking bay and almost overshot the shuttle. At the last second he dropped a leg and snagged the metal skin with his sticky toes. The rest of his body slingshot past before being brought up short to snap him back. His skin had already taken on the black paint and square panels of the hull, complete with shadow lines between the panels.
Panting in reaction, he clung to the shuttle, extending his senses. Had the Arik heard his less than graceful landing?
Murmurs of voices, but they were unconcerned. The two Arik guards clicked and hissed to each other in their native language. Their long, thin snouts offered flashes of the sharp teeth beneath. Raki crept along the hull to peer down at them.
The Arik were now arguing, but he didn’t think it had anything to do with him. They were a feisty lot, arguing was the norm. Their long limbs, armed with a ridge of pointed thorns, gesticulated as they squared off at the bottom of the ramp.
Raki took advantage of their distraction to climb along the hull and proceed upside down through the doorway. Once inside, he jumped to the walls and then into the ceiling infrastructure. His skin changed to mimic the painted surface of the hallway. He flattened himself against the ceiling while his hearts threatened to leap straight out of his chest. But the song lured him onward, and he scurried along, heading deeper into the ship.
The Tanti’s amphibious heritage was evident in the air’s humidity, it formed moisture on Raki’s skin, and his sticky discs left little damp circles in their wake.
The song led him rearward to the cargo bay door. A sophisticated door panel defied access. Raki crouched amidst the spars and struts and studied the conduits passing through the walls and into the cargo bay.
The largest, an air duct, had promise. Although Raki had never tried it, he’d researched enough on the species to know of the Bukka’s elastic skeleton. If he could fit his skull through an opening, the rest of his body would also flex to pass.
In theory, anyway. The conduit was close enough in size, if he could wrench it loose. Raki absorbed the sticky discs on two fingers and allowed his natural, razor-sharp claws to emerge. They penetrated the material with ease but sawing through it was more work. He ended up creating a series of punctures around the conduit. Then he allowed the muscles of his shoulders and arms to reassert themselves. He heaved, and the material fractured with a loud crack.
Raki flattened himself among the spars, but nothing happened. He pulled at the conduit, and then pushed the other side away, creating a hole in the wall.
The moment he did so, the song soared, as though aware of his presence. Raki crammed his skull through the hole so fast he scraped the skin. The rest of his body followed without conscious thought. In seconds, he clung to the ceiling of the shuttle’s small cargo bay.
Anchored in the center was a plasteel cage, about twice his height and the same width. The floor was lit, and a creature crouched on it. As he entered, it straightened to its full height.
It—no, she—stood tall on her clawed toes. Naked, except for the soft silver fur that covered her from her pointed ears to the long, tufted tail. Muscles hugged her lithe frame. Her ear antennae radiated outward, the ovals at the tips reaching toward him.
Raki clung to the ceiling as her song flooded his soul. Her face with its strong jaw and high cheekbones was as familiar to him as his own.
Another Carabisk.
The Carabisk moved toward the walls of her prison but didn’t touch them. Raki had seen containment like this before—they would shock her senseless if she tried. When she moved, the manacles at her ankles and wrists gleamed. A quick glance confirmed his suspicions—pressure plates and sensors hardwired all around the cage.
The Tanti were serious about keeping this prisoner.
His hearts sank. There was no way to get her out of there. Even if he could, what then? There was no safety for her on the carrier.
Her pain wove around him like a living thing. Whoever she was, she’d been free before she’d become merchandise. She looked up at him, her confusion obvious. She could sense him through their link, but not see him. Raki surveyed the area, but the monitors seemed oriented on the cage.
He let his golden fur chase over the Bukka skin, and for just a moment, allowed his real face to appear.
Her eyes, a pale, crystallized blue, widened. The music swelled within him, and the pain changed to something much more potent. Then, as though a switch had been thrown, it vanished.
Freed from its power, he blinked at her, before pushing the transformation back to Bukka. The song faded, but the desire to save her remained.
Save her? How the grut was he going to do that?
He turned and squeezed back through the hole, propping the conduit into place to disguise what he’d done. Plan. He needed a plan. His mind raced. The captive Carabisk was on a shuttle. The only option to save her was to get the shuttle away from the carrier. He wasn’t much of a pilot, but he should be able to fly this thing. If he could get to the bridge.
That meant deceiving the two Arik guarding the ramp and getting past the crew.
It took him precious time to determine there were three crew still aboard. The Baraghee mechanic’s small, square, feathered body hunched over something in the engine room. A richly clothed Tanti hung out in the shuttle’s tiny kitchen, and the Arik pilot sat on the bridge.
The bridge was the key. From there, he could shut the other two in their areas, and then lock the Arik guards outside. They’d be helpless to do anything about it.
Raki clung to the bridge’s ceiling, staring down at the oblivious Arik pilot. What now? He’d spent a lifetime hiding, not fighting. All Arik were trained to kill, so Raki didn’t stand a chance against the vicious creature.
But he thought of the Carabisk, forced into a life of slavery by these aliens, and it reformed his resolve. He needed to do this. He also had to take down the pilot fast and quietly, or it might alert the Arik standing outside.
Yeah, right. Who was he kidding? The Arik wasn’t just a fighter; he was armed. Raki needed a better plan than coming at a killer with teeth and claws.
So he worked on his tail.
Or rather, the very end of it. This wasn’t a Bukka feature, it belonged to another organism: a traveler’s pet. He formed a pocket and connected it to a piercing stinger at the tip. The hard part was filling the gland. As Raki’s body followed his visualization of the toxin, it created the genetic blueprint for venom production. But Raki lacked access to the plants the creature consumed for a component of it, so his would not be as powerful. He tried to make up for it in volume, pushing the tissues to secrete enough to fill the entire sac.
He glanced down at the Arik, just as its black eyes opened and it raised its head to sniff. Raki’s heart turned to ice. He’d shapeshifted himself into invisibility. But the hardest thing to extinguish was scent.
The Arik’s head tilted up, and it frowned right at the spot where Raki crouched. And suddenly, he didn’t have any choice.
He released the Bukka form as he leaped, starting with his claws. But the Arik moved like lightning, vaulting out of the pilot’s chair and into the aisle behind, spinning and aiming a laser pistol as he did so.
Still half Bukka, Raki lunged for the wall, bouncing off it to come at the Arik. The laser tracked him as it fired, burning a path through the golden fur of his torso. The pain galvanized him. He snarled as he hit the pilot, sinking claws into the wiry chest as his momentum carried them both into the aisle.
The Arik twisted beneath him. The sharp arm thorns tore into Raki’s flesh, and the sharp teeth below the long snout snapped at his face. But the proportional combination of muscle, sinew, and bone that was Carabisk made Raki inherently strong. He clung with his claws and grim determination, holding the creature too close for it to use the laser. So it went for the knife at its belt instead. Raki spread his long legs wide to brace, grabbed the arm wielding the knife when it was inches from his chest, and used the one weapon he’d held onto through the struggle. His long tail curved up and over his body to drive the stinger into the Arik’s exposed neck.
The Arik made a strangled noise and stiffened as the venom flowed. Then the black eyes rolled upward, and the lithe body went limp.
He’d killed him.
Raki backed away from the body, into the bridge. He hit the door controls, and it rotated shut and locked.
Raki collapsed into the pilot’s seat. He shook from the tips of his pointed ears to the stinger now regressing at the end of his tail, but he started punching buttons. The shuttle had a standard bridge panel, so he recognized most of the controls. First, he hit an emergency switch, which shut down every compartment on the ship and snapped the exterior hatch closed before raising the ramp. The Arik guards might be puzzled that the pilot shut them out, but not necessarily alarmed.
The controls for the cargo bay were on a separate panel with its own console. He studied the screen for a few seconds. It required an electronic key to deactivate. Did the pilot have the key?
He rose, opened the door, and came face to face with the startled, richly dressed Tanti from the kitchen. So much for locking everyone up. Instinct he didn’t know he possessed took over. A millisecond later he had the Tanti slammed up against the bulkhead with his clawed fingers digging into its slimy skin. The four eyes bulged at him, and he almost closed those fingers, but then he remembered.
“I want the cargo bay security deactivated,” Raki said in Kusk. It was a common language, and he was sure the Tanti understood it.
The creature writhed beneath his claws, its mouth opening to reveal the chewing jaws within the external orifice. But it said nothing.
He thought of the Carabisk’s pain and his anger flared. He lifted the Tanti and slammed it hard once more into the bulkhead. “Tell me how to deactivate the security. Or die.”
The creature’s breath burbled beneath his fingers, but the tentacles of one hand released his arm to pull something from its belt. A long, narrow key card.
Raki snatched the card before dragging the protesting Tanti down the aisle. The only thing not secured was the emergency airlock. He shoved the creature into it and activated the sequence. It would spit the Tanti out onto the deck.
His long legs took him back to the bridge in great, leaping bounds. He had to get them out of here. Raki slid into the pilot’s seat and inserted the key card into the cargo bay panel. All the lights went from purple to red. Then he turned his attention to the shuttle controls.
Like all slipstream vessels, the carrier had doors on each end of the docking bay deck. Ships entered through one and exited through the other. The doors weren’t metal but rather invisible screens which separated atmosphere from space. Ships usually passed through the shields unharmed, as long as the security features weren’t activated.
The moment the shuttle started to move, things would change in a hurry. But he had one advantage: the docking crew knew the codes. It would take the bridge crew precious minutes to reprogram new ones.
Still, he would have to be fast. From start up to mobile in milliseconds. And moving within the confines of the bay would be interesting. Two Arik fighters stood between him and the exit. He could fly over them, but there wouldn’t be much room to spare. The Arik guards now paced restlessly near one fighter, alert and confused, but not yet alarmed.
He muttered an invocation to the gods of fortune and fired up the engines.
Immediately the Arik’s attitudes changed. There was much waving of arms, and one spoke into a device on his chest.
Raki pulled back on the controls, and the shuttle rose. He caught a glimpse of shocked expressions, and then he passed right over them. Proximity alarms blared, and the shuttle shuddered as it hit the infrastructure of the carrier’s ceiling. Another, louder alarm blasted as security came online. A booming voice demanded he stop in several consecutive languages, and the screen across the door fluoresced red.
Raki ignored it as he typed his security code into the shuttle’s transmission module. The door reverted to blue, and he punched the controls. The engines revved and the ship shot through, trailing pieces of infrastructure in its wake.
The slipstream queueing center, full of ships waiting their turn, welcomed him. Raki swerved away toward the blackness of open space and pushed the engines to full, knowing the Arik fighters would be on their tail. And they were. Red dots appeared on his console screen, showing three had followed him out.
He tapped at the console and perused the map it showed him. Where to go? With the fighters so close, he’d be running rather than hiding. And he was a deckhand, not a master pilot. He was in big trouble.
A buzz startled him so badly that his fur fluffed out. Then the song brushed against him. His antennae vibrated and his hearts accelerated as he unlocked the door. A millisecond later, the bridge became a lot more crowded.
“Get out of my way.” Her voice snarled through long fangs.
“What?”
“Are you a pilot?”
“Uh . . . no.” The shuttle shuddered as the first laser hit the shields.
“Then get out of my way.”
Raki had zero experience with females of his species, but as he hastily vacated the pilot’s chair he experienced his first real doubt since the entire thing had begun. He slid into the copilot’s seat and stared at her. What had he expected? A shy, courteous thank you? A reward? Her eternal gratitude?
He sure as grut hadn’t foreseen a seriously pissed off female Carabisk who no sooner got her hands on the controls than put the shuttle into a twisting, diving spiral. Raki grabbed at the seat with both hands and tail and scrambled to get the restraint harness activated. A task made all the more difficult when she shoved her feet against the pedals while pulling back on the control column, which fired the reverse thrusters and flipped the ship on its back.
Through the view screen he caught a glimpse of the Arik fighters shooting past, but his crazed pilot had already punched the accelerator. She pointed the shuttle at the group of ships waiting for the slipstream portal. Raki finally managed to snap his restraint harness into place.
“Who are youWhat’s your name?” He gasped as she drove the ship straight at a Bundala cruiser.
“Aranka,” she snapped, flying so low over the massive ship’s hull she clipped an antennae. “Now shut up while I drive.”
Raki almost bit his tongue as she aimed the shuttle for a gap between the cruiser and another slipstream transport. A gap far too small in Raki’s inexpert opinion. But Aranka didn’t slow—she accelerated. And then, at the last second, yanked hard on the control column, shooting them up and over the transport.
The much smaller fighters streaked past like angry hornets on a mission. Aranka spun the shuttle, slipped through the gap, and fell in behind them.
“What are you—”
“Watch and see, my pretty”
Pretty? Before Raki could protest, Aranka flipped up the tracking screen and opened fire with the shuttle’s single laser. One fighter exploded and the second jigged wildly, but the laser tracked across the vacuum of space with unerring accuracy to clip the fighter’s wing. It narrowly missed a waiting ship as it disintegrated.
Apparently, the slipstream authority was unimpressed. Blips on their screen showed a group of ships closing in. The remaining fighter peeled off from the pursuit, and Aranka pointed the shuttle for open space. Then punched it, leaving the older, slower security ships receding behind them.
Raki regarded her with wide eyes. “Who,” he said, “are you?”
Her lifted lip showed pointed teeth, and he caught a hint of the song in her soul, and the pain she held inside. “I am nobody’s slave,” she said. “Who are you?”
Raki swallowed. No one had ever asked him that. Now, looking into her crystal blue eyes, he found something he didn’t know he’d lost. His twin hearts swelled as the answer rose in him.
“I am Carabisk,” he said, and bared his long fangs.
Chapter Two
Aranka did her best to ignore the other Carabisk, but it was harder than she anticipated.
For one thing, he was a Carabisk. The first she’d seen since her parents had been killed when she was only a child. She’d been forced to grow up on the streets of a nearly derelict city on a backwater planet, stealing to survive.
So the fact he was one of her kind meant she hadn’t cycled him through the airlock. Yet. But then there was also the fact that he was rather good looking.
Okay, more than just good looking. With that thick golden fur, eyes so green they glowed, and a face with cheekbones to die for. Broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips and a tail that beckoned . . .
She was in serious trouble. Ara sighed as her fingers flew over the keys. The last thing she needed was her hormones running the show.
Still, he’d saved her. Much as she’d like to think otherwise, she wouldn’t have got out of that cargo bay on her own. Had tried, in fact. Still had the scorch marks to prove it.
So maybe she’d drop Raki on the next closest planet rather than shoving him through the airlock. Seemed fair. A life for a life.
With that issue decided, she turned her attention to the task at hand.
She was mildly surprised when her security clearance still operated. Ara had been out of circulation for a month. In her business, that usually meant a player wasn’t ever returning.
The face that eventually wove into view would make many queasy, mostly because it lacked any permanent shape. The outlines of the Yatul’s entire body were in perpetual motion, the only constants being the eight round eyes that never blinked.
They didn’t change shape, either, but the skin's expansion around them equated to widening of the eyes.
“Ara! I’d heard you were you lost to us.”
“Hello Zait.” Ara’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t think the Yatul had anything to do with her attempted enslavement, but he’d been rumored to succumb to the lure of currency in other devious dealings. As Coordinator of the Acquisitions Guild, he was extremely well rewarded.
But Ara knew all too well that greed wasn’t always about need. And Yakul were renowned for their greed.
“Where have you been?” Zait’s head dented at the top, spreading to a squarish shape that she’d interpreted as concern.
She doubted it was genuine. Ara watched him closely as she spoke. “My partner on the last project sold me to Tanti slavers. Made a pretty penny on it, I’m sure.”
The flesh around his eyes quivered, and she lacked the ability to interpret it. If he’d been part of the betrayal, she had no way of knowing.
“Karska has always been reliable,” Zait began.
“Reliably a bastard, you mean. He’d sell his own offspring.”
Zait paused. “I think he has. He told me you’d been shot and killed. He sold your ship.”
Ara ground her teeth. She’d expected as much. Her old bucket of bolts hadn’t looked like much, but it had been well maintained, and it had been home.
“If I catch up to Karska, he’ll be lucky to survive the experience.” She glared at the screen, then peeled her lips back from her long canines. The threat did not need voicing.
The Yakul’s entire head rippled around the eyes. Message received.
She got right to the point. “I need an in with the shipyard. My new ride needs a complete overhaul. Registration, paint, weapons package, the works.”
Two arms appeared below the head, each with three fingers. “Do you have sufficient currency, or will I have to offer financing?”
Financing came with hooks to which Ara had no intention of agreeing to. Far too many players were eyeball deep in debt to the Guild.
“I will require quotes up front, but I should have enough to finance the overhaul.” Barely. She would need a major score hovering on the horizon if she was going to pull through this debacle.
Zait’s skin turned a deeper shade, a sign of disappointment. He liked to own his players. Ara had always been elusive. She got away with it because she was also flekking good.
“I will arrange it. How shall I contact you?”
That information could be used to track her, and she wasn’t willing for that to happen. “I will get back to you in three hours.”
Small bumps appeared on Zait’s face, a sign of frustration. Ara ignored it as she terminated the connection.
She’d have to use her savings to get this shuttle rigged for its new job. It would end up much better than what she’d had before, but it would also leave her hanging on the edge financially. Not a place she wanted to be.
People died when they dangled over that edge. Currency was security.
“I thought you might like something to eat.”
Ara jumped. She hadn’t heard Raki approach; he moved like—well, he moved like her. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had managed to sneak up on her.
Being betrayed by your working partner didn’t count. He’d drugged her like the coward he was.
Raki slipped gracefully between the pilot’s and copilot’s seats and offered her a tray. The container on it steamed gently, and her mouth watered.
She took the bowl and dug the spoon in, her stomach growling. Some kind of meat stew? It was thick, and spicy.
“This is good.” The words were out before she even thought about them, and his green eyes gleamed as he squeezed into the copilot’s chair with his own bowl.
“You like it? The galley is well stocked. I improvised.”
Okay, so the guy could cook. Maybe she’d wait until she got the ship retrofitted before dropping him off.
She needed to regain her strength, after all.
Scene 2
Raki sat in the copilot's chair and wondered just what the hell he was doing.
The viewscreen displayed a bustling shipyard. Everywhere he panned the scanners, there were ships being painted, or otherwise worked on. It all looked very innocent until you realized the ones on the outer edges were being stripped of every usable component.
He supposed stripping an aged or damaged ship for parts would be standard practice at a shipyard. But two of these looked pretty frekking new to be put on the spare-parts list.
He'd be willing to bet they'd been stolen.
It might not have occurred to him if he weren't himself sitting in a stolen vessel. One that Ara seemed determined to keep for her own.
He didn't feel any empathy for the Tanti who'd owned it. Anyone willing to enslave a sentient species deserved whatever Fate could throw at them.
But now that she was free, he asked himself just what he thought he was doing. He dedicated his entire life to hiding in plain sight. The number one priority was staying off anyone's radar. The very last thing he should do was engage in an illegal activity.
Truth be told, he'd been more responsible for stealing the ship than Ara. And there had been no time to think things through. Up until now, he'd been simply in survival mode.
He debated whether he was a fugitive. The security cameras in the docking bay of the slipstream ship might have picked up his movements as a Bukka, but no one would connect that to him. As far as they knew, he was Kusk. But he'd vanished from the ship, and if some zealous officer insisted on scanning his quarters, the DNA that came back would be very revealing. And his individual passcode had got them through the security shields. The only debate among authorities would be whether he'd done it voluntarily.
Raki fidgeted in the seat—there wasn't enough room for his long legs. He didn't mind. Being able to lounge on the bridge in his natural state was a luxury. But Ara had left him a hooded cape that fell to mid-shin—one of the Tanti's cloaks—and warned him not to show his real self to the mechanics now swarming the ship. She'd also told him to stay on board.
Somehow, when he'd envisioned rescuing her, he hadn't expected her to be quite this bossy.
It should have annoyed the grut out of him, but it didn't. Every time she walked into the room, his body followed in the wake of his antennae and vibrated. It was actually embarrassing as hell. He was well past adolescence, and he'd thought he was past that kind of thing.
So obviously not the case.
To make matters worse, she seemed almost unaffected by him. Almost, but not completely—he'd seen her antennae, more delicate than his own, waving in his direction. But judging by her expression, she seemed completely capable of ignoring them, and him.
Raki had zero experience with his own people, let alone a female version of them. Were they all so—difficult? Ara ordered him around like he was a child. She expected to be obeyed.
So far, he'd gone along with it. But it didn't make him feel very secure about his future. Was he willing to stay with her? To answer that, he needed to know more about what she did, and how she did it. Despite his efforts, she had told him only that she worked for the Acquisitions Guild.
That bit of information had sent every alarm bell ringing. The Guild's public face was a trading network that operated throughout the civilized sectors. But it was also rumored to operate in the less than civilized ones, and in a less than civilized manner.
If someone wanted a specific item, the Guild would find it for them—for a price, of course. Many never questioned where the item was procured from.
Rumors abounded about the Guild, providing more than simple acquisition assistance. He'd heard that they offered a variety of services for the discerning client. It was those gray zones that concerned him the most.
Because Ara moved like a predator.
Of course, they both were, in the strictest sense. But Ara had been secretive about what she did for them. And when he'd asked where they were going after the ship was retrofitted, she'd clammed up altogether.
Not reassuring, regardless of how his silly antennae reacted. What would he do if the only female Carabisk he'd ever seen—maybe the only one in existence—turned out to be an assassin for hire?
At least she hadn't killed him, if that was the case. Maybe she liked his cooking.
Should he go his own way? The shipyard was on Tanitas. The planet had a rough reputation, and it harbored a significant black-market trade.
Raki was accomplished at blending in. Surely he could find himself a job here that didn't require documentation. He had a bit of currency stashed. But if authorities flagged his accounts, they would know where he was as soon as he accessed his funds. So he'd only do that if he was prepared to take it all and run.
It was a big decision. He needed more information before he could take such a leap. And he'd never get it sitting on the bridge.
Being not on the bridge had complications of its own. It meant he had to be out there, mixing with the locals. His hearts raced at the thought. Routine had always been paramount to his safety.
Yet he knew the safety of the bridge was, at best, a temporary illusion. He didn't know this Ara, or whether he could trust her. He suspected she was into things he'd rather not be involved with. Yet it was difficult to leave even an illusion of safety for possible peril.
Raki took a deep breath and stood, pulling the hooded cape up over his ears and fastening it so it closed around him. He focused on his feet and lower legs, contracting the tendons and retracting the fur until stubby Kusk feet were all that could be seen. Then he left the bridge, stumbling a little until he got used to walking on them.
To blend in, he first needed to see what forms of life frequented the shipyard. The ship swarmed with mechanics of several different species. Raki studied them with interest, noting physical parameters. He chose a tall individual who was obviously overseeing those crawling through the infrastructure. The alien—a Quarl, he thought—was a mammalian type, fully furred, with an elongated proboscis and a tiny mouth. Its lengthy tongue continually darted out to sample the air.
Both the size and the way its limbs moved were very close to his own. As Raki walked by, he staggered as though tripping, and reached a hand past the cape to grip the Quarl's powerful arm.
The creature stiffened, but Raki only held on for a second. Then he apologized in Kusk and continued on, as his body absorbed the skin cells and interpreted the DNA within.
Ara was nowhere to be seen when Raki ducked into the quarters he'd been using. They were much nicer than any he'd lived in before. His room on the slipstream ship had basically been a bed and a dresser. This one had a bedroom, a small sitting area, and a bathroom.
The first time he tried the shapeshift, his body wasn't ready for it. He waited, impatiently, and the next time the cells obeyed.
Once the change was complete, he felt a little lightheaded. The effort needed for shifting sucked vast amounts of energy. To fuel the changes, Raki ate like a creature five times his size. But his adopted scientist parents had also discerned that he required the energy of the sun of his long-lost home planet to stay healthy. The sunlamp in his private quarters on the slipstream cruiser was one of his most precious possessions; it enabled him to spend long days as someone he wasn't.
But of course, he'd left it behind on the ship. He could likely find another. If his lightheaded state was any indication, he'd better do it soon. But currency was an issue he needed to resolve. Tapping into his savings could lead the slipstream authorities straight to him.
A few moments later, he emerged into the aisle as a Quarl, wearing the cloak with the hood down. The pockets bulged with possible barter he'd scrounged from the room. Only upon close examination would show the green glint in what should be yellow eyes.
Avoiding the work crew—running into two copies of their boss would have given it all away—Raki reached the exit ramp. No one blinked as he merged with the bustle around the ship, passed it by, and headed out of the shipyard.
Scene 2
Ara prowled beneath her new ship.
With the modifications she'd ordered, it would offer much more than what she'd had before. In some respects, it already was. Its main feature strength was its speed—it had the latest in shuttle drive engines. With an upgrade or two—five alone to the engines—there wouldn't be much that could catch her.
And if someone did, she'd planned to have a surprise in store for them. Most shuttles were lightly armed, at best. But she'd ordered turbo lasers installed forward and back, as well as a belly mounted cannon that dropped into place when requested. She'd lost storage capacity to it, but such a weapon was worth the sacrifice. The owners of the things she was contracted to acquire tended to object to her efforts.
The shuttle may be relatively new and well outfitted, but to be a Player's vessel, it not only required speed and weapons, but also the ability to secure valuable items. So the technicians overhauled the central computer, installing the latest in artificial intelligence so that the ship would sing only for her.
The alterations would drain her savings down to almost zero. She would need a major score from Zait as soon as the work was completed. The prospect made her nervous. In the past, she'd been able to afford to turn down anything that was either too dangerous or that stepped on her personal code of conduct. But now, beggars literally couldn't be choosers. And the Yakul would know, or suspect, that she was desperate for the work.
Yet another thing to take up with her ex-partner, Karska, if she ever found him.
Ara ground her teeth and sought out the supervisor. The Quarl was easy to spot—he was as tall as Raki, towering over most of the other workers.
When she paused in front of him, he nodded his narrow head to her.
"When do you expect the work to be finished?" Ara asked in Basic. Most in the service industry understood and spoke the universal language. It wasn't an original question, but when she'd first asked it, he had told her he needed to assess the ship before giving her an estimate.
"Thirty-two Tanitasian hours." She winced at his nasally speech, but what else could one expect from him with a nose like that. His long tongue flicked at her, which she would have found disconcerting if she didn't know it was the way Quarls interpreted their world.
That was a more precise estimate than she'd expected. "Excellent."
He nodded and turned back to his workers. Ara stifled her annoyance at the dismissal. No sense taking him up on it, not when it might delay the work.
She had time to kill and what better way to spend it than shopping.
Along with the loss of her ship, was everything she'd ever owned. It rankled to think of Karska selling her personal possessions. Most could be replaced easily enough, but there were a few . . .
Ara took a deep breath. Time for her to start accumulating some new things. She'd start with weapons. A Player was naked without them. Vulnerable.
Something she refused to be.
She was familiar with Tanitas. It had a thriving black market, and she personally knew a couple of weapons dealers.
Ara wove her way out of the shipyard and along the poorly lit streets to the market itself. It was late evening, the shadows lengthening along the street. Although the food vendors would be closing for the day, some aspects of the market never closed.
Like many other places, the predators came out at night. The industry that served them received them with open arms. And doors.
She may have her features and form hidden with her hooded cape, but her posture was erect, her hands held away from her body. That, combined with her height and naturally graceful movement, caused those frequenting the dark streets to give her a wide berth.
They might have been emboldened if they'd known she was weaponless. The cape was of Tanti design, leftovers from the ship's previous owners. They were as tall as her, and with bulkier bodies and heads. As a result, the garment draped loose and all the way to the ground.
Anything could be hiding beneath it. As a bluff tactic, it worked exactly as planned. By the time she was done with her current mission, it would no longer be a bluff.
Scene 3
Despite the persistent lightheaded sensation, Raki was enjoying the market.
Most of it was closing for the day, but the variety of merchants astounded him. Cloth and clothing, jewelry and hair ornamentation, foods from every world he’d ever visited and many he’d never heard of . . . His quest for a lamp was soon forgotten as he strolled along the aisles.
The Quarl tongue was a thing of wonder. It tasted the air and sent back an overload of information that his brain struggled to process. It took him a bit of practice to keep it from hitting vendors and other booth visitors, and he received more than a few angry looks when he did so.
The sensations he received when the tongue made contact with a living creature encouraged him to avoid the experience. It wasn’t just the taste of their sweat or body oils, it was the information such things carried. He lacked the experience to fully understand it, but at least one of the beings it touched had significant health issues.
Nevertheless, his Quarl disguise was a good one. Raki was just one of many that strolled through the market.
It worked—until it didn’t. A Quarl popped up in front of him, and began to babble at him in a language he had no hope of understanding. The creature obviously recognized Raki. Or rather, the Quarl whose guise he’d borrowed.
Raki’s mind raced in time to his hearts. “My apologies,” he said in Basic. “But I am in a rush. Can we connect at another time?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but ducked among a large group of Xoetar, whose woolly bodies hid him effectively until he could slip down another aisle. Even if he pulled his hood up, it couldn’t hide the nose, or most of his enlarged Quarl features. He’d have to find his lamp quick and head back to the ship.
It had been a close call, and his hearts thundered at him. Or heart. The Quarl had only one, he thought, as his hand groped for his chest beneath the cloak. A wave of dizziness passed over him—a reminder that he needed that frekking lamp.
He started to search in earnest, but his stomach growled at him. It wasn’t just sun energy he was low on. Food would be a huge help. His long nose twitched, and the tongue darted out to sample the air.
He turned to follow the scent.
Chapter Three Scene Two
The closer they got to the lair of the weapon’s dealer, the darker the streets became.
Raki had fallen silent. His tall form loomed to her left, the Quarl tongue flicking nervously every few seconds.
Quarl would never have been any good as Players. Bluff was a big part of the game. But something seemed off with him—rather than moving with his usual loose-limbed grace, his strides were stiff, as though he forced his limbs forward.
Ara didn’t have time to worry about it. They were being watched. She wasn’t concerned, this was normal protocol, and therefore didn’t flinch when the huge form stepped out of the shadows.
Raki, however, jumped and then went stiff as a board.
“It’s okay,” she whispered to him. To the behemoth creature that stood in their path, she said, “I’m here to see Barten.”
The Drxar—a species commonly used as bodyguards due to their impressive size and strength—grunted, “Name?”
Ara stared up into the three reddish eyes. This was a different Drxar from her last visit. “Ara. Guild ID 55809QRL.”
The Guild had sway with the weapons dealers, as their Players not only used a lot of them, but sometimes functioned to acquire specialty items for the dealers’ clientèle. The comm device strapped over the holes beneath the twin horns on the Drxar’s bulky head crackled as a voice spoke to the creature. Ara couldn’t hear what it said, but the behemoth turned away and led them down the narrow road.
“Is this normal?” Raki’s whispered voice had risen a full octave.
Ara nodded. “Perfectly.”
When he stepped closer to her, his movements were smoother, more like his normal self. Adrenaline could do that to you. Make you more than what you were.
The Drxar paused at a heavy metal door, and stood like a rock while the security beam scanned him. The door beeped, and they entered a brightly lit corridor.
The room beyond was more dimly lit, and Ara knew it was designed so that the dealer, Barten, could get a good look at the client before revealing himself.
But her nose warned her that all was not as she expected. The scent that drifted to her wasn’t Barten’s distinctive, smokey aroma, but something much more acidic.
She subtly adjusted her stance, reminding herself that she was the client, here to buy. Beside her, Raki picked up on her unease. He straightened to his full height.
“It’s okay,” she reassured, even though she really had no idea. It didn’t surprise her when the form that emerged from the room beyond wasn’t Barten’s.
Not even the same species. She’d only seen a Sisnal once before, the reptilian species wasn’t common. “Who are you?” she asked. “Where is Barten?”
“Barten is no longer with us.” What substituted for the Sisnal’s shoulders moved up and down in a shrug. “I have inherited his business. I am Eatar.”
Well, there were all kinds of possibilities hidden within that statement. Bartel had been a shrewd dealer and no one’s fool. If Eatar had killed him to ‘inherit’ the business, he had some impressive skills.
Ara was on the alert because she’d worked with Barten many times in the past and had come to trust him. She didn’t know this Sisnal at all. She could back out, go to her secondary dealer. But Barten’s weapons were generally a better quality.
“I am here to buy,” she said. “If your merchandise is up to my standards.”
“I think you will find it acceptable.” The creature’s Basic was slurred, but understandable. “I have the finest quality on the planet.”
Ara straightened. “We will see.”
If her skepticism offended him, there was no way to tell. But Ara knew how to handle these guys—you showed weakness, and they’d walk all over you.
“What is it you require?”
Ara offered a hand-written list. Datapad exchanges could result in implantation of sophisticated tracking devices. Information was power in places like this. You needed to be alert to keep your private data to yourself. She’d learned the hard way that written lists were far safer.
She watched the Sisnal closely as he read the list, but his scaled features revealed nothing. “I have these items in stock,” he said. “I can have them delivered to you.”
“I’d like the first five immediately.” She kept her stance deliberately relaxed. “The remainder can be delivered to the docking bay at the bottom of the list.” The last thing she needed was for him to interpret that correctly—that she was currently unarmed. But she had no choice—she was naked without any weapons. Bluff could only get you so far.
Eatar’s long, toothy jaws nodded up and down. “Very well. You can wait in the antechamber while I fetch them for you.”
The Drxar followed them as Eatar led the way into the room beyond him. It was lined with plasteel display cases featuring weapons from all over the cosmos. Ara had seen the cases before. They were designed to impress—and it always worked. Many of the weapons were rare.
“I will take payment now,” the dealer said, pausing before the walls of gleaming weapons. “Ten thousand four crunels.”
“Too much. I’ll give you ten thousand even.”
Sisnal spread his scaly fingers. “Please. The quality is unequaled. The knives alone—Ten thousand two.”
“Split the difference. Ten one.”
He tilted his head, and then nodded. Ara pulled out five small sacks from beneath her cloak, and then a sixth to count out several bars.
She’d taken one grut of a risk walking around with all this money, but it beat giving the dealer access to her electronic accounts. It was still a risk, even with most of it handed over. But if he ever wanted to deal with the Guild again, he’d treat her with respect.
The Sisnal took the money, bowed to her, and disappeared through a back door with her list. Ara turned to peruse the weapons on display. An impressive collection, better even than the last time she’d been here.
Half way around the room, her eyes caught and held on a sword.
It was prominently featured in the center of one case. Three feet long with a very slight, graceful curve, the blade was narrow and sheathed in a simple leather scabbard. The hilt was also bound in leather, dyed red, with a tiny tear near the guard. The guard itself was etched with the initials AK.
The tear would ordinarily be too small to be seen, but Ara knew it was there. Because the sword had once belonged to her mentor. The man who’d rescued her off the streets, and taught her how to survive in the real world. Who had died, saving her life.
She’d last seen that sword in her private quarters on her old ship. The day Karska had drugged her, and sold her to the Tanti.
That sword belonged to her. And it was the one thing she’d fight to keep.
Chapter Three Scene Three
Raki wasn’t feeling at all well.
He fought to keep his shaking from showing. He didn’t think a trembling Quarl would be an effective bodyguard to Ara as she spoke with the dealer.
Not that he was any match for that monster that stood behind them. He’d never met a Drxar, but he’d heard about them. You didn’t mess with them, and live.
He hoped Ara knew what the frek she was doing, because he sure as grut had no idea.
What were the chances she’d see him at the market? She’d seemed impressed by his disguise, which only served to confuse him more. She was Carabisk. Surely he wasn’t doing anything she couldn’t do?
He was so in over his furry head. He’d believed her when she’d told him she wasn’t an assassin, but she’d also admitted to killing if need be. And now he stood in a seedy looking building while she bought weapons from a dealer.
Ara might not be an assassin, but she wasn’t a innocent courier, either. She had to be a Player. He’d heard about them, too. Someone who acquired items as assigned by the Guild, regardless of whether they were officially up for sale.
Many Players ended up on the most wanted lists in various systems. If they were in the business for long enough, they became almost famous. Or infamous. Tales of their exploits provided entertainment for the average dinner crowd. The common person had difficulty sympathizing with the wealthy, regardless of who or what they were.
Did he really want to get entangled in this? He was already in enough trouble with the slipstream authorities, whose reach was long. If he joined Ara, he’d end up a wanted critter in a much different manner.
Maybe he could call upon his good deed in freeing her to ply her for a new identity, and then go his own way . . .
The dealer took Ara’s list and disappeared through a door. Ara turned to the display cases lining the walls, and perused the weapons.
Time passed. Raki trailed behind her until she froze in front of one of the cases, and stayed there.
Eatar reappeared with a sturdy, double handled bag.
The moment he did so, Ara snapped, “Where did you get that sword?”
The note in her voice sent chills down Raki’s spine. He followed her gaze to a sword hanging in one of the display cases.
Eatar’s reptilian gaze narrowed as he set the bag down. “It was a recent purchase. Are you interested in it? It is a rare sword.”
“I know. It was mine, until it was stolen from me.”
The Sisnal stiffened, and the reaction was mimicked by the Drxar behind them. Raki’s heart began to pound in a rather erratic fashion.
“That was unfortunate,” the dealer said smoothly. “But the rules are clear. I paid good coin for it. I can offer you a deal if you wish to purchase it back, but the sword is now mine.”
To Raki’s shock, Ara pulled her hood back. Any pretense at calm had abandoned her. Her antennae stood stiff as her blue eyes blazed at Eatar. “How much?”
Raki’s Quarl eyes bulged at the figure he quoted.
Ara’s lips pulled back from her long canine teeth. Behind them, the Drxar took a long step forward.
“That is full retail for that sword. The very least you could do is offer me cost, plus a finder’s commission.”
The Sisnal’s gaze darted from her, to his bodyguard. “That sword is worth every penny I ask. That you once owned it, and lost it, is not my problem. In your business, you should understand that.” He set the bag on the floor and straightened. “I will deliver the remainder of your purchases at first light tomorrow. Unless you wish to pay fair market value for the sword, I suggest it is time for you to leave.”
The Drxar loomed over them, the threat clear. Raki swayed from one foot, to the other.
Ara’s gaze never left the dealer, but for just a fraction of a moment, something sang between Raki and her. A burst of pure soundless music that surged between them, making his entire body vibrate.
Right before she leaped at the Sisnal.
The Drxar lunged for her, long arms reaching. And a tentacle shot from beneath Raki’s cloak.
He was as shocked to see it as the Drxar. In that fraction of a second, his mind had visualized something strong enough to stop that juggernaut of muscle. Apparently, it had settled on the tentacle from a sea creature he’d admired at a zoo long ago.
Admired, and touched.
It wrapped not around the arm, but around one of the Drxar’s thick legs. Raki rocked back, yanking hard on what his arm had become. The Drxar’s feet shot out from under it, and the creature went down. Hard.
He was on top of it before it could blink, the tentacle that was his left arm wrapping around its thick neck, his own, golden-furred, clawed hand digging into the meaty shoulder. A tail shot out from beneath his cloak, the end arching over his back to point a stinger directly at the Drxar’s left eye. The swollen poison sack behind it lacked sufficient venom to bring the creature down, but it wouldn’t know that.
“W-what are you?” the creature croaked.
“Move,” hissed Raki, “And you die.”
He didn’t recognize his own voice. His reactions had all been pure instinct. If he stopped to think about it, he’d likely fall to pieces.
So he rather determinedly did not think about it.
Ara had also been busy. She held Eatar in a headlock, and now leaned down to bring her pointed canines close to his neck. The Sisnal’s orange eyes rolled as he tried not to stare at them.
“I can offer you cost, plus a finder’s fee.” His slurred voice shook.
“That would be acceptable,” Ara snarled.
Raki stood on the docking bay catwalk and watched as the shuttle moved into place. When the sensors set into the metal plate on the deck lit purple, he activated the locking mechanism.
Slipstream cargo carriers usually transported a full complement of mixed shuttles and smaller craft for every voyage, but the owners of this shuttle had insisted on booking the entire ship for just themselves and their three escorts—sleek Vipe fighters with laser mounts bristling from the elongated double prongs on both front and rear. Surely an expensive venture. What would require that kind of security?
Raki wasn’t paid for his curiosity, although he suffered from it regularly. He leaned on the railing to peruse the shuttle. Paranoia made him scan his hands as he did so—Kusk hands, three fingers and a thumb, thick and covered with gray, leathery skin. He noticed a small tuft of gold fur and concentrated until it dropped away to the metal floor far beneath.
He’d been disguised for so many years that the constant scrutinizing for slips was as much a part of him as the golden fur he hid beneath his body armor. To the rest of the universe he appeared as just another homely Kusk. The hardest part to maintain wasn’t the leathery skin in place of fur; it was his legs. When he rose from every sleep cycle, he wrestled his long leg bones into submission, contracting the cells until they were almost half their normal length, relaxing the tendons to permit him to walk flat-footed instead of up on his toes. By the end of his shifts, his legs ached despite his inherent healing ability.
But it was a small price to pay for safety.
As far as Raki knew he was the last survivor of his species, victims of a cosmic genocide when he was only a child. Two foreign researchers had smuggled him off the planet amid the chaos, and raised him as they conducted their studies, hopping between planets. But in all his long life—and Carabisk were very long lived—he’d never been able to relax while in his own skin.
The slipstream carrier featured a leisure deck for visitors. He waited for the shuttle’s occupants to emerge. The vessel looked new, sleek, and fast. It belonged to Tanti merchants, and Raki wanted a glimpse of their tentacle-like fingers, bulbous heads, and slimy bodies. But when the ramp dropped, only one emerged from the shuttle, although six Arik unfolded their lithe frames from the Vipes. After a somewhat heated discussion—based on the gesticulation of the long limbs—two of the Arik took their place at the foot of the shuttle’s ramp. The four others headed for the lift. The Tanti held itself aloof from the Arik as it waited for the lift. Raki stared in fascination at the quivering flesh of its huge braincase until the doors closed.
The big ship’s engines rumbled beneath his feet as it got moving. Life on a slipstream cargo carrier tended to be boring as grut. Raki double-checked the locking mechanisms and his hands in the same scan. Kusk vision was dull compared to his own; he longed for the rich colors and clarity of his real vision. And as he took a deep breath, he fought back the usual frustration inherent in living in another’s body.
Then he heard the singing.
Well, it wasn’t exactly singing. And he wasn’t sure he was hearing it with his stunted Kusk auditory disks. It vibrated through him—a pulse of sound that made all the fur within his armor stand up on end. Was it real? If it was, where was it coming from?
Raki glanced around but nothing had changed. Across the bay, the mechanic—a particularly chunky Kusk—emerged briefly from his cubby to fetch the toolbelt hanging over the rail. Nothing in his demeanor suggested he’d heard anything. Raki watched to see that the Kusk had returned to his engines before pulling away from his console and stepping into the shadows cast from the overhead crane.
He knew the docking bay monitors didn’t penetrate this corner. Reverting to his natural form was a simple matter of letting go, the hard part was stopping the process partway. He allowed his ears to morph, becoming large, elongated triangles with distinctive, delicate antennae protruding from the pointed tips. Halting the transformation was painful. He fought the fur spreading rapidly across the gray skin. Fought, and won.
The moment his ears changed, the tone of the music deepened. He gasped as it filled him. It sang of loss and an anguish so deep it threatened to tear his own hearts in two. In response, his ear antennae spread and lengthened as though physically seeking the source, the small ovals at the tips vibrating.
Raki had never experienced such pain. Beyond the physical, this was something of the soul. He longed to find it, to fold himself around it, and make it all stop.
He caught himself just in time—he’d taken a step out of the shadows. Toward the shuttle.
Raki shoved his ears back into submission, wincing in discomfort. The sound diminished as he did so, becoming the initial vibration he’d experienced. He didn’t think that ordinary Kusk could hear it. Raki wasn’t sure it was a true sound—something about it reached beyond hearing to reverberate within him.
He strode along the catwalk to the ladder that dropped him to the deck. He had about an hour before the carrier took its place in the queue, and then another half before it entered the channel that would take it far away. Once in slipstream, everyone must be strapped into a restraint harness. Until then, he had freedom to move.
And he was going to check out that shuttle.
Within his armor, the stump of Raki’s tail twitched as he reached the lower deck. He knew he was in full view of the monitors and busied himself with inspecting the anchor points for the ships. All normal duties. But there was nothing normal about what radiated from the shuttle.
It was the source of the sound. There was no doubt.
Raki stood before a console and pretended to be checking the manifest. The ship was reputedly carrying replacement components for a renovation in Bundala sector. Was it a passenger that he sensed?
His twin hearts pounded hard. He’d spent all his life avoiding risk, hiding behind disguises. His foster parents, now long dead, had drilled it into him. Before the Carabisk were exterminated, their shapeshifting and healing abilities were in high demand. At first their services were voluntary, but as the political stability of their solar system declined, many were enslaved as espionage agents and assassins. When the system erupted into full-fledged war, his people were caught in the crossfire.
But the talents that had put them there were as much in demand now as they had been then, perhaps even more so. If anyone discovered what he was, Raki’s days of freedom would be over. He was worth more than the Vipes that were currently anchored to the deck.
All this raced through his brain as he stared at the console. Even muted, the music wove through him like a siren song. He didn’t understand its hold over him. But it was undeniable. And his response, instinctive. It drew him. He had to find the source.
But how?
You’re a shapeshifter, idiot.
Raki’s job enabled him to brush elbows with many forms of life. He’d made a study of them, and it wasn’t just a random hobby, not when his life depended on his competence to take on other forms. Carabisk had the ability to assess life at the genetic level through direct skin contact. Although part of the process was unconscious, Raki had to visually guide himself through the morph, so he’d developed a keen eye for physical detail. He’d spent many hours in the privacy of his tiny, one-cot cubby practicing alternative shapes.
He moved away from the monitors and into the shadows thrown by several large supply crates. Slipping between two of them, he stripped off his armor. Without its protective covering, he trembled with anxiety. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been out of it when not in the safety of his cubby. What was he doing? Was this worth the risk?
But the song beckoned, and his ears itched to emerge and drink it in. Unfortunately, his native form wouldn’t work for this venture, he needed to be invisible. Or the next best thing . . .
He closed his eyes and focused. They’d had a Bukka on board, once. Although not shapeshifters, their skin had the ability to camouflage with their surroundings. This Bukka had been a slave, but it accompanied its master to the leisure area. Raki had casually brushed against its skin while they helped themselves to hot, bitter cups of raanck.
Now, Raki visualized the Bukka, and his skin changed. The golden fur on his lean body dropped away as the skin became pale gray and smooth. With relief, he let his legs assume more normal proportions, but the flesh of his hands and feet split to the ankles and wrists, providing him with long, strangely articulated fingers and toes. Each ended in a disc rather than his usual claws. His tail lengthened and thickened, and his jaws shortened, giving him a flat, almost featureless face with enormous round eyes.
Only after he had all the proportions correct, did he begin to shrink. Of all the shapeshifting techniques, two were exponentially more difficult to master: adding limbs and altering size. The Bukka had two arms and legs, but it was a smaller creature. Shrinking mass involved condensing cells. Fortunately, he didn’t need to reduce himself to the size of a Bukka, but a diminished stature would help him when stealth was his goal.
He took himself down to about half his usual bulk and set his skin free.
Or free for a Bukka, anyway. The gray skin immediately altered, not just color, but texture as well. In an instant it had taken on the stippled orange surface of the storage crates. As long as he didn’t move too fast, the skin would adapt to whatever it touched.
Useful creatures, Bukka. He felt a pang for the slave he’d met. In this region of space, useful things tended to end up owned.
It took every ounce of courage Raki possessed to venture out of his hiding place. Although he often practiced changing shape, it had been many years since he’d go out as anything other than a Kusk. If he got caught like this on the ship...
He didn’t finish the thought. It was as though the song had altered something inside him. It made the paranoia and fear fade. In its place was something, or rather someone, he didn’t recognize.
And that someone scurried on all fours across the deck.
Raki’s natural form was that of a runner and leaper. This splay-legged clinging thing was foreign to him, and he struggled to master the required effort. As he moved, he kept an eye on the Arik. They trained as fighters from the time they could walk upright, and once mature, most became hired mercenaries. Long framed and leanly muscled, Arik possessed keen senses, including large, cup-shaped ears that captured any noise. Raki must not only be invisible, but silent as he advanced.
He didn’t approach directly. Instead, he used the sticky discs on his fingers and toes to attain the upper level catwalk and move along it until he was almost even with the shuttle. Then he climbed onto the railing and stared down at his target.
He may have practiced being a Bukka in his cubby, but now he must move like one, and Raki had no idea if his new form could make that leap. He took a moment to alter the muscles in his legs from the Bukka norm, coiling the tendons like a spring and adding calf and thigh muscles for power. Then he launched himself.
Straight as an arrow, he flew across the docking bay and almost overshot the shuttle. At the last second he dropped a leg and snagged the metal skin with his sticky toes. The rest of his body slingshot past before being brought up short to snap him back. His skin had already taken on the black paint and square panels of the hull, complete with shadow lines between the panels.
Panting in reaction, he clung to the shuttle, extending his senses. Had the Arik heard his less than graceful landing?
Murmurs of voices, but they were unconcerned. The two Arik guards clicked and hissed to each other in their native language. Their long, thin snouts offered flashes of the sharp teeth beneath. Raki crept along the hull to peer down at them.
The Arik were now arguing, but he didn’t think it had anything to do with him. They were a feisty lot, arguing was the norm. Their long limbs, armed with a ridge of pointed thorns, gesticulated as they squared off at the bottom of the ramp.
Raki took advantage of their distraction to climb along the hull and proceed upside down through the doorway. Once inside, he jumped to the walls and then into the ceiling infrastructure. His skin changed to mimic the painted surface of the hallway. He flattened himself against the ceiling while his hearts threatened to leap straight out of his chest. But the song lured him onward, and he scurried along, heading deeper into the ship.
The Tanti’s amphibious heritage was evident in the air’s humidity, it formed moisture on Raki’s skin, and his sticky discs left little damp circles in their wake.
The song led him rearward to the cargo bay door. A sophisticated door panel defied access. Raki crouched amidst the spars and struts and studied the conduits passing through the walls and into the cargo bay.
The largest, an air duct, had promise. Although Raki had never tried it, he’d researched enough on the species to know of the Bukka’s elastic skeleton. If he could fit his skull through an opening, the rest of his body would also flex to pass.
In theory, anyway. The conduit was close enough in size, if he could wrench it loose. Raki absorbed the sticky discs on two fingers and allowed his natural, razor-sharp claws to emerge. They penetrated the material with ease but sawing through it was more work. He ended up creating a series of punctures around the conduit. Then he allowed the muscles of his shoulders and arms to reassert themselves. He heaved, and the material fractured with a loud crack.
Raki flattened himself among the spars, but nothing happened. He pulled at the conduit, and then pushed the other side away, creating a hole in the wall.
The moment he did so, the song soared, as though aware of his presence. Raki crammed his skull through the hole so fast he scraped the skin. The rest of his body followed without conscious thought. In seconds, he clung to the ceiling of the shuttle’s small cargo bay.
Anchored in the center was a plasteel cage, about twice his height and the same width. The floor was lit, and a creature crouched on it. As he entered, it straightened to its full height.
It—no, she—stood tall on her clawed toes. Naked, except for the soft silver fur that covered her from her pointed ears to the long, tufted tail. Muscles hugged her lithe frame. Her ear antennae radiated outward, the ovals at the tips reaching toward him.
Raki clung to the ceiling as her song flooded his soul. Her face with its strong jaw and high cheekbones was as familiar to him as his own.
Another Carabisk.
The Carabisk moved toward the walls of her prison but didn’t touch them. Raki had seen containment like this before—they would shock her senseless if she tried. When she moved, the manacles at her ankles and wrists gleamed. A quick glance confirmed his suspicions—pressure plates and sensors hardwired all around the cage.
The Tanti were serious about keeping this prisoner.
His hearts sank. There was no way to get her out of there. Even if he could, what then? There was no safety for her on the carrier.
Her pain wove around him like a living thing. Whoever she was, she’d been free before she’d become merchandise. She looked up at him, her confusion obvious. She could sense him through their link, but not see him. Raki surveyed the area, but the monitors seemed oriented on the cage.
He let his golden fur chase over the Bukka skin, and for just a moment, allowed his real face to appear.
Her eyes, a pale, crystallized blue, widened. The music swelled within him, and the pain changed to something much more potent. Then, as though a switch had been thrown, it vanished.
Freed from its power, he blinked at her, before pushing the transformation back to Bukka. The song faded, but the desire to save her remained.
Save her? How the grut was he going to do that?
He turned and squeezed back through the hole, propping the conduit into place to disguise what he’d done. Plan. He needed a plan. His mind raced. The captive Carabisk was on a shuttle. The only option to save her was to get the shuttle away from the carrier. He wasn’t much of a pilot, but he should be able to fly this thing. If he could get to the bridge.
That meant deceiving the two Arik guarding the ramp and getting past the crew.
It took him precious time to determine there were three crew still aboard. The Baraghee mechanic’s small, square, feathered body hunched over something in the engine room. A richly clothed Tanti hung out in the shuttle’s tiny kitchen, and the Arik pilot sat on the bridge.
The bridge was the key. From there, he could shut the other two in their areas, and then lock the Arik guards outside. They’d be helpless to do anything about it.
Raki clung to the bridge’s ceiling, staring down at the oblivious Arik pilot. What now? He’d spent a lifetime hiding, not fighting. All Arik were trained to kill, so Raki didn’t stand a chance against the vicious creature.
But he thought of the Carabisk, forced into a life of slavery by these aliens, and it reformed his resolve. He needed to do this. He also had to take down the pilot fast and quietly, or it might alert the Arik standing outside.
Yeah, right. Who was he kidding? The Arik wasn’t just a fighter; he was armed. Raki needed a better plan than coming at a killer with teeth and claws.
So he worked on his tail.
Or rather, the very end of it. This wasn’t a Bukka feature, it belonged to another organism: a traveler’s pet. He formed a pocket and connected it to a piercing stinger at the tip. The hard part was filling the gland. As Raki’s body followed his visualization of the toxin, it created the genetic blueprint for venom production. But Raki lacked access to the plants the creature consumed for a component of it, so his would not be as powerful. He tried to make up for it in volume, pushing the tissues to secrete enough to fill the entire sac.
He glanced down at the Arik, just as its black eyes opened and it raised its head to sniff. Raki’s heart turned to ice. He’d shapeshifted himself into invisibility. But the hardest thing to extinguish was scent.
The Arik’s head tilted up, and it frowned right at the spot where Raki crouched. And suddenly, he didn’t have any choice.
He released the Bukka form as he leaped, starting with his claws. But the Arik moved like lightning, vaulting out of the pilot’s chair and into the aisle behind, spinning and aiming a laser pistol as he did so.
Still half Bukka, Raki lunged for the wall, bouncing off it to come at the Arik. The laser tracked him as it fired, burning a path through the golden fur of his torso. The pain galvanized him. He snarled as he hit the pilot, sinking claws into the wiry chest as his momentum carried them both into the aisle.
The Arik twisted beneath him. The sharp arm thorns tore into Raki’s flesh, and the sharp teeth below the long snout snapped at his face. But the proportional combination of muscle, sinew, and bone that was Carabisk made Raki inherently strong. He clung with his claws and grim determination, holding the creature too close for it to use the laser. So it went for the knife at its belt instead. Raki spread his long legs wide to brace, grabbed the arm wielding the knife when it was inches from his chest, and used the one weapon he’d held onto through the struggle. His long tail curved up and over his body to drive the stinger into the Arik’s exposed neck.
The Arik made a strangled noise and stiffened as the venom flowed. Then the black eyes rolled upward, and the lithe body went limp.
He’d killed him.
Raki backed away from the body, into the bridge. He hit the door controls, and it rotated shut and locked.
Raki collapsed into the pilot’s seat. He shook from the tips of his pointed ears to the stinger now regressing at the end of his tail, but he started punching buttons. The shuttle had a standard bridge panel, so he recognized most of the controls. First, he hit an emergency switch, which shut down every compartment on the ship and snapped the exterior hatch closed before raising the ramp. The Arik guards might be puzzled that the pilot shut them out, but not necessarily alarmed.
The controls for the cargo bay were on a separate panel with its own console. He studied the screen for a few seconds. It required an electronic key to deactivate. Did the pilot have the key?
He rose, opened the door, and came face to face with the startled, richly dressed Tanti from the kitchen. So much for locking everyone up. Instinct he didn’t know he possessed took over. A millisecond later he had the Tanti slammed up against the bulkhead with his clawed fingers digging into its slimy skin. The four eyes bulged at him, and he almost closed those fingers, but then he remembered.
“I want the cargo bay security deactivated,” Raki said in Kusk. It was a common language, and he was sure the Tanti understood it.
The creature writhed beneath his claws, its mouth opening to reveal the chewing jaws within the external orifice. But it said nothing.
He thought of the Carabisk’s pain and his anger flared. He lifted the Tanti and slammed it hard once more into the bulkhead. “Tell me how to deactivate the security. Or die.”
The creature’s breath burbled beneath his fingers, but the tentacles of one hand released his arm to pull something from its belt. A long, narrow key card.
Raki snatched the card before dragging the protesting Tanti down the aisle. The only thing not secured was the emergency airlock. He shoved the creature into it and activated the sequence. It would spit the Tanti out onto the deck.
His long legs took him back to the bridge in great, leaping bounds. He had to get them out of here. Raki slid into the pilot’s seat and inserted the key card into the cargo bay panel. All the lights went from purple to red. Then he turned his attention to the shuttle controls.
Like all slipstream vessels, the carrier had doors on each end of the docking bay deck. Ships entered through one and exited through the other. The doors weren’t metal but rather invisible screens which separated atmosphere from space. Ships usually passed through the shields unharmed, as long as the security features weren’t activated.
The moment the shuttle started to move, things would change in a hurry. But he had one advantage: the docking crew knew the codes. It would take the bridge crew precious minutes to reprogram new ones.
Still, he would have to be fast. From start up to mobile in milliseconds. And moving within the confines of the bay would be interesting. Two Arik fighters stood between him and the exit. He could fly over them, but there wouldn’t be much room to spare. The Arik guards now paced restlessly near one fighter, alert and confused, but not yet alarmed.
He muttered an invocation to the gods of fortune and fired up the engines.
Immediately the Arik’s attitudes changed. There was much waving of arms, and one spoke into a device on his chest.
Raki pulled back on the controls, and the shuttle rose. He caught a glimpse of shocked expressions, and then he passed right over them. Proximity alarms blared, and the shuttle shuddered as it hit the infrastructure of the carrier’s ceiling. Another, louder alarm blasted as security came online. A booming voice demanded he stop in several consecutive languages, and the screen across the door fluoresced red.
Raki ignored it as he typed his security code into the shuttle’s transmission module. The door reverted to blue, and he punched the controls. The engines revved and the ship shot through, trailing pieces of infrastructure in its wake.
The slipstream queueing center, full of ships waiting their turn, welcomed him. Raki swerved away toward the blackness of open space and pushed the engines to full, knowing the Arik fighters would be on their tail. And they were. Red dots appeared on his console screen, showing three had followed him out.
He tapped at the console and perused the map it showed him. Where to go? With the fighters so close, he’d be running rather than hiding. And he was a deckhand, not a master pilot. He was in big trouble.
A buzz startled him so badly that his fur fluffed out. Then the song brushed against him. His antennae vibrated and his hearts accelerated as he unlocked the door. A millisecond later, the bridge became a lot more crowded.
“Get out of my way.” Her voice snarled through long fangs.
“What?”
“Are you a pilot?”
“Uh . . . no.” The shuttle shuddered as the first laser hit the shields.
“Then get out of my way.”
Raki had zero experience with females of his species, but as he hastily vacated the pilot’s chair he experienced his first real doubt since the entire thing had begun. He slid into the copilot’s seat and stared at her. What had he expected? A shy, courteous thank you? A reward? Her eternal gratitude?
He sure as grut hadn’t foreseen a seriously pissed off female Carabisk who no sooner got her hands on the controls than put the shuttle into a twisting, diving spiral. Raki grabbed at the seat with both hands and tail and scrambled to get the restraint harness activated. A task made all the more difficult when she shoved her feet against the pedals while pulling back on the control column, which fired the reverse thrusters and flipped the ship on its back.
Through the view screen he caught a glimpse of the Arik fighters shooting past, but his crazed pilot had already punched the accelerator. She pointed the shuttle at the group of ships waiting for the slipstream portal. Raki finally managed to snap his restraint harness into place.
“Who are youWhat’s your name?” He gasped as she drove the ship straight at a Bundala cruiser.
“Aranka,” she snapped, flying so low over the massive ship’s hull she clipped an antennae. “Now shut up while I drive.”
Raki almost bit his tongue as she aimed the shuttle for a gap between the cruiser and another slipstream transport. A gap far too small in Raki’s inexpert opinion. But Aranka didn’t slow—she accelerated. And then, at the last second, yanked hard on the control column, shooting them up and over the transport.
The much smaller fighters streaked past like angry hornets on a mission. Aranka spun the shuttle, slipped through the gap, and fell in behind them.
“What are you—”
“Watch and see, my pretty”
Pretty? Before Raki could protest, Aranka flipped up the tracking screen and opened fire with the shuttle’s single laser. One fighter exploded and the second jigged wildly, but the laser tracked across the vacuum of space with unerring accuracy to clip the fighter’s wing. It narrowly missed a waiting ship as it disintegrated.
Apparently, the slipstream authority was unimpressed. Blips on their screen showed a group of ships closing in. The remaining fighter peeled off from the pursuit, and Aranka pointed the shuttle for open space. Then punched it, leaving the older, slower security ships receding behind them.
Raki regarded her with wide eyes. “Who,” he said, “are you?”
Her lifted lip showed pointed teeth, and he caught a hint of the song in her soul, and the pain she held inside. “I am nobody’s slave,” she said. “Who are you?”
Raki swallowed. No one had ever asked him that. Now, looking into her crystal blue eyes, he found something he didn’t know he’d lost. His twin hearts swelled as the answer rose in him.
“I am Carabisk,” he said, and bared his long fangs.
Chapter Two
Aranka did her best to ignore the other Carabisk, but it was harder than she anticipated.
For one thing, he was a Carabisk. The first she’d seen since her parents had been killed when she was only a child. She’d been forced to grow up on the streets of a nearly derelict city on a backwater planet, stealing to survive.
So the fact he was one of her kind meant she hadn’t cycled him through the airlock. Yet. But then there was also the fact that he was rather good looking.
Okay, more than just good looking. With that thick golden fur, eyes so green they glowed, and a face with cheekbones to die for. Broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips and a tail that beckoned . . .
She was in serious trouble. Ara sighed as her fingers flew over the keys. The last thing she needed was her hormones running the show.
Still, he’d saved her. Much as she’d like to think otherwise, she wouldn’t have got out of that cargo bay on her own. Had tried, in fact. Still had the scorch marks to prove it.
So maybe she’d drop Raki on the next closest planet rather than shoving him through the airlock. Seemed fair. A life for a life.
With that issue decided, she turned her attention to the task at hand.
She was mildly surprised when her security clearance still operated. Ara had been out of circulation for a month. In her business, that usually meant a player wasn’t ever returning.
The face that eventually wove into view would make many queasy, mostly because it lacked any permanent shape. The outlines of the Yatul’s entire body were in perpetual motion, the only constants being the eight round eyes that never blinked.
They didn’t change shape, either, but the skin's expansion around them equated to widening of the eyes.
“Ara! I’d heard you were you lost to us.”
“Hello Zait.” Ara’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t think the Yatul had anything to do with her attempted enslavement, but he’d been rumored to succumb to the lure of currency in other devious dealings. As Coordinator of the Acquisitions Guild, he was extremely well rewarded.
But Ara knew all too well that greed wasn’t always about need. And Yakul were renowned for their greed.
“Where have you been?” Zait’s head dented at the top, spreading to a squarish shape that she’d interpreted as concern.
She doubted it was genuine. Ara watched him closely as she spoke. “My partner on the last project sold me to Tanti slavers. Made a pretty penny on it, I’m sure.”
The flesh around his eyes quivered, and she lacked the ability to interpret it. If he’d been part of the betrayal, she had no way of knowing.
“Karska has always been reliable,” Zait began.
“Reliably a bastard, you mean. He’d sell his own offspring.”
Zait paused. “I think he has. He told me you’d been shot and killed. He sold your ship.”
Ara ground her teeth. She’d expected as much. Her old bucket of bolts hadn’t looked like much, but it had been well maintained, and it had been home.
“If I catch up to Karska, he’ll be lucky to survive the experience.” She glared at the screen, then peeled her lips back from her long canines. The threat did not need voicing.
The Yakul’s entire head rippled around the eyes. Message received.
She got right to the point. “I need an in with the shipyard. My new ride needs a complete overhaul. Registration, paint, weapons package, the works.”
Two arms appeared below the head, each with three fingers. “Do you have sufficient currency, or will I have to offer financing?”
Financing came with hooks to which Ara had no intention of agreeing to. Far too many players were eyeball deep in debt to the Guild.
“I will require quotes up front, but I should have enough to finance the overhaul.” Barely. She would need a major score hovering on the horizon if she was going to pull through this debacle.
Zait’s skin turned a deeper shade, a sign of disappointment. He liked to own his players. Ara had always been elusive. She got away with it because she was also flekking good.
“I will arrange it. How shall I contact you?”
That information could be used to track her, and she wasn’t willing for that to happen. “I will get back to you in three hours.”
Small bumps appeared on Zait’s face, a sign of frustration. Ara ignored it as she terminated the connection.
She’d have to use her savings to get this shuttle rigged for its new job. It would end up much better than what she’d had before, but it would also leave her hanging on the edge financially. Not a place she wanted to be.
People died when they dangled over that edge. Currency was security.
“I thought you might like something to eat.”
Ara jumped. She hadn’t heard Raki approach; he moved like—well, he moved like her. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had managed to sneak up on her.
Being betrayed by your working partner didn’t count. He’d drugged her like the coward he was.
Raki slipped gracefully between the pilot’s and copilot’s seats and offered her a tray. The container on it steamed gently, and her mouth watered.
She took the bowl and dug the spoon in, her stomach growling. Some kind of meat stew? It was thick, and spicy.
“This is good.” The words were out before she even thought about them, and his green eyes gleamed as he squeezed into the copilot’s chair with his own bowl.
“You like it? The galley is well stocked. I improvised.”
Okay, so the guy could cook. Maybe she’d wait until she got the ship retrofitted before dropping him off.
She needed to regain her strength, after all.
Scene 2
Raki sat in the copilot's chair and wondered just what the hell he was doing.
The viewscreen displayed a bustling shipyard. Everywhere he panned the scanners, there were ships being painted, or otherwise worked on. It all looked very innocent until you realized the ones on the outer edges were being stripped of every usable component.
He supposed stripping an aged or damaged ship for parts would be standard practice at a shipyard. But two of these looked pretty frekking new to be put on the spare-parts list.
He'd be willing to bet they'd been stolen.
It might not have occurred to him if he weren't himself sitting in a stolen vessel. One that Ara seemed determined to keep for her own.
He didn't feel any empathy for the Tanti who'd owned it. Anyone willing to enslave a sentient species deserved whatever Fate could throw at them.
But now that she was free, he asked himself just what he thought he was doing. He dedicated his entire life to hiding in plain sight. The number one priority was staying off anyone's radar. The very last thing he should do was engage in an illegal activity.
Truth be told, he'd been more responsible for stealing the ship than Ara. And there had been no time to think things through. Up until now, he'd been simply in survival mode.
He debated whether he was a fugitive. The security cameras in the docking bay of the slipstream ship might have picked up his movements as a Bukka, but no one would connect that to him. As far as they knew, he was Kusk. But he'd vanished from the ship, and if some zealous officer insisted on scanning his quarters, the DNA that came back would be very revealing. And his individual passcode had got them through the security shields. The only debate among authorities would be whether he'd done it voluntarily.
Raki fidgeted in the seat—there wasn't enough room for his long legs. He didn't mind. Being able to lounge on the bridge in his natural state was a luxury. But Ara had left him a hooded cape that fell to mid-shin—one of the Tanti's cloaks—and warned him not to show his real self to the mechanics now swarming the ship. She'd also told him to stay on board.
Somehow, when he'd envisioned rescuing her, he hadn't expected her to be quite this bossy.
It should have annoyed the grut out of him, but it didn't. Every time she walked into the room, his body followed in the wake of his antennae and vibrated. It was actually embarrassing as hell. He was well past adolescence, and he'd thought he was past that kind of thing.
So obviously not the case.
To make matters worse, she seemed almost unaffected by him. Almost, but not completely—he'd seen her antennae, more delicate than his own, waving in his direction. But judging by her expression, she seemed completely capable of ignoring them, and him.
Raki had zero experience with his own people, let alone a female version of them. Were they all so—difficult? Ara ordered him around like he was a child. She expected to be obeyed.
So far, he'd gone along with it. But it didn't make him feel very secure about his future. Was he willing to stay with her? To answer that, he needed to know more about what she did, and how she did it. Despite his efforts, she had told him only that she worked for the Acquisitions Guild.
That bit of information had sent every alarm bell ringing. The Guild's public face was a trading network that operated throughout the civilized sectors. But it was also rumored to operate in the less than civilized ones, and in a less than civilized manner.
If someone wanted a specific item, the Guild would find it for them—for a price, of course. Many never questioned where the item was procured from.
Rumors abounded about the Guild, providing more than simple acquisition assistance. He'd heard that they offered a variety of services for the discerning client. It was those gray zones that concerned him the most.
Because Ara moved like a predator.
Of course, they both were, in the strictest sense. But Ara had been secretive about what she did for them. And when he'd asked where they were going after the ship was retrofitted, she'd clammed up altogether.
Not reassuring, regardless of how his silly antennae reacted. What would he do if the only female Carabisk he'd ever seen—maybe the only one in existence—turned out to be an assassin for hire?
At least she hadn't killed him, if that was the case. Maybe she liked his cooking.
Should he go his own way? The shipyard was on Tanitas. The planet had a rough reputation, and it harbored a significant black-market trade.
Raki was accomplished at blending in. Surely he could find himself a job here that didn't require documentation. He had a bit of currency stashed. But if authorities flagged his accounts, they would know where he was as soon as he accessed his funds. So he'd only do that if he was prepared to take it all and run.
It was a big decision. He needed more information before he could take such a leap. And he'd never get it sitting on the bridge.
Being not on the bridge had complications of its own. It meant he had to be out there, mixing with the locals. His hearts raced at the thought. Routine had always been paramount to his safety.
Yet he knew the safety of the bridge was, at best, a temporary illusion. He didn't know this Ara, or whether he could trust her. He suspected she was into things he'd rather not be involved with. Yet it was difficult to leave even an illusion of safety for possible peril.
Raki took a deep breath and stood, pulling the hooded cape up over his ears and fastening it so it closed around him. He focused on his feet and lower legs, contracting the tendons and retracting the fur until stubby Kusk feet were all that could be seen. Then he left the bridge, stumbling a little until he got used to walking on them.
To blend in, he first needed to see what forms of life frequented the shipyard. The ship swarmed with mechanics of several different species. Raki studied them with interest, noting physical parameters. He chose a tall individual who was obviously overseeing those crawling through the infrastructure. The alien—a Quarl, he thought—was a mammalian type, fully furred, with an elongated proboscis and a tiny mouth. Its lengthy tongue continually darted out to sample the air.
Both the size and the way its limbs moved were very close to his own. As Raki walked by, he staggered as though tripping, and reached a hand past the cape to grip the Quarl's powerful arm.
The creature stiffened, but Raki only held on for a second. Then he apologized in Kusk and continued on, as his body absorbed the skin cells and interpreted the DNA within.
Ara was nowhere to be seen when Raki ducked into the quarters he'd been using. They were much nicer than any he'd lived in before. His room on the slipstream ship had basically been a bed and a dresser. This one had a bedroom, a small sitting area, and a bathroom.
The first time he tried the shapeshift, his body wasn't ready for it. He waited, impatiently, and the next time the cells obeyed.
Once the change was complete, he felt a little lightheaded. The effort needed for shifting sucked vast amounts of energy. To fuel the changes, Raki ate like a creature five times his size. But his adopted scientist parents had also discerned that he required the energy of the sun of his long-lost home planet to stay healthy. The sunlamp in his private quarters on the slipstream cruiser was one of his most precious possessions; it enabled him to spend long days as someone he wasn't.
But of course, he'd left it behind on the ship. He could likely find another. If his lightheaded state was any indication, he'd better do it soon. But currency was an issue he needed to resolve. Tapping into his savings could lead the slipstream authorities straight to him.
A few moments later, he emerged into the aisle as a Quarl, wearing the cloak with the hood down. The pockets bulged with possible barter he'd scrounged from the room. Only upon close examination would show the green glint in what should be yellow eyes.
Avoiding the work crew—running into two copies of their boss would have given it all away—Raki reached the exit ramp. No one blinked as he merged with the bustle around the ship, passed it by, and headed out of the shipyard.
Scene 2
Ara prowled beneath her new ship.
With the modifications she'd ordered, it would offer much more than what she'd had before. In some respects, it already was. Its main feature strength was its speed—it had the latest in shuttle drive engines. With an upgrade or two—five alone to the engines—there wouldn't be much that could catch her.
And if someone did, she'd planned to have a surprise in store for them. Most shuttles were lightly armed, at best. But she'd ordered turbo lasers installed forward and back, as well as a belly mounted cannon that dropped into place when requested. She'd lost storage capacity to it, but such a weapon was worth the sacrifice. The owners of the things she was contracted to acquire tended to object to her efforts.
The shuttle may be relatively new and well outfitted, but to be a Player's vessel, it not only required speed and weapons, but also the ability to secure valuable items. So the technicians overhauled the central computer, installing the latest in artificial intelligence so that the ship would sing only for her.
The alterations would drain her savings down to almost zero. She would need a major score from Zait as soon as the work was completed. The prospect made her nervous. In the past, she'd been able to afford to turn down anything that was either too dangerous or that stepped on her personal code of conduct. But now, beggars literally couldn't be choosers. And the Yakul would know, or suspect, that she was desperate for the work.
Yet another thing to take up with her ex-partner, Karska, if she ever found him.
Ara ground her teeth and sought out the supervisor. The Quarl was easy to spot—he was as tall as Raki, towering over most of the other workers.
When she paused in front of him, he nodded his narrow head to her.
"When do you expect the work to be finished?" Ara asked in Basic. Most in the service industry understood and spoke the universal language. It wasn't an original question, but when she'd first asked it, he had told her he needed to assess the ship before giving her an estimate.
"Thirty-two Tanitasian hours." She winced at his nasally speech, but what else could one expect from him with a nose like that. His long tongue flicked at her, which she would have found disconcerting if she didn't know it was the way Quarls interpreted their world.
That was a more precise estimate than she'd expected. "Excellent."
He nodded and turned back to his workers. Ara stifled her annoyance at the dismissal. No sense taking him up on it, not when it might delay the work.
She had time to kill and what better way to spend it than shopping.
Along with the loss of her ship, was everything she'd ever owned. It rankled to think of Karska selling her personal possessions. Most could be replaced easily enough, but there were a few . . .
Ara took a deep breath. Time for her to start accumulating some new things. She'd start with weapons. A Player was naked without them. Vulnerable.
Something she refused to be.
She was familiar with Tanitas. It had a thriving black market, and she personally knew a couple of weapons dealers.
Ara wove her way out of the shipyard and along the poorly lit streets to the market itself. It was late evening, the shadows lengthening along the street. Although the food vendors would be closing for the day, some aspects of the market never closed.
Like many other places, the predators came out at night. The industry that served them received them with open arms. And doors.
She may have her features and form hidden with her hooded cape, but her posture was erect, her hands held away from her body. That, combined with her height and naturally graceful movement, caused those frequenting the dark streets to give her a wide berth.
They might have been emboldened if they'd known she was weaponless. The cape was of Tanti design, leftovers from the ship's previous owners. They were as tall as her, and with bulkier bodies and heads. As a result, the garment draped loose and all the way to the ground.
Anything could be hiding beneath it. As a bluff tactic, it worked exactly as planned. By the time she was done with her current mission, it would no longer be a bluff.
Scene 3
Despite the persistent lightheaded sensation, Raki was enjoying the market.
Most of it was closing for the day, but the variety of merchants astounded him. Cloth and clothing, jewelry and hair ornamentation, foods from every world he’d ever visited and many he’d never heard of . . . His quest for a lamp was soon forgotten as he strolled along the aisles.
The Quarl tongue was a thing of wonder. It tasted the air and sent back an overload of information that his brain struggled to process. It took him a bit of practice to keep it from hitting vendors and other booth visitors, and he received more than a few angry looks when he did so.
The sensations he received when the tongue made contact with a living creature encouraged him to avoid the experience. It wasn’t just the taste of their sweat or body oils, it was the information such things carried. He lacked the experience to fully understand it, but at least one of the beings it touched had significant health issues.
Nevertheless, his Quarl disguise was a good one. Raki was just one of many that strolled through the market.
It worked—until it didn’t. A Quarl popped up in front of him, and began to babble at him in a language he had no hope of understanding. The creature obviously recognized Raki. Or rather, the Quarl whose guise he’d borrowed.
Raki’s mind raced in time to his hearts. “My apologies,” he said in Basic. “But I am in a rush. Can we connect at another time?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but ducked among a large group of Xoetar, whose woolly bodies hid him effectively until he could slip down another aisle. Even if he pulled his hood up, it couldn’t hide the nose, or most of his enlarged Quarl features. He’d have to find his lamp quick and head back to the ship.
It had been a close call, and his hearts thundered at him. Or heart. The Quarl had only one, he thought, as his hand groped for his chest beneath the cloak. A wave of dizziness passed over him—a reminder that he needed that frekking lamp.
He started to search in earnest, but his stomach growled at him. It wasn’t just sun energy he was low on. Food would be a huge help. His long nose twitched, and the tongue darted out to sample the air.
He turned to follow the scent.
Chapter Three Scene Two
The closer they got to the lair of the weapon’s dealer, the darker the streets became.
Raki had fallen silent. His tall form loomed to her left, the Quarl tongue flicking nervously every few seconds.
Quarl would never have been any good as Players. Bluff was a big part of the game. But something seemed off with him—rather than moving with his usual loose-limbed grace, his strides were stiff, as though he forced his limbs forward.
Ara didn’t have time to worry about it. They were being watched. She wasn’t concerned, this was normal protocol, and therefore didn’t flinch when the huge form stepped out of the shadows.
Raki, however, jumped and then went stiff as a board.
“It’s okay,” she whispered to him. To the behemoth creature that stood in their path, she said, “I’m here to see Barten.”
The Drxar—a species commonly used as bodyguards due to their impressive size and strength—grunted, “Name?”
Ara stared up into the three reddish eyes. This was a different Drxar from her last visit. “Ara. Guild ID 55809QRL.”
The Guild had sway with the weapons dealers, as their Players not only used a lot of them, but sometimes functioned to acquire specialty items for the dealers’ clientèle. The comm device strapped over the holes beneath the twin horns on the Drxar’s bulky head crackled as a voice spoke to the creature. Ara couldn’t hear what it said, but the behemoth turned away and led them down the narrow road.
“Is this normal?” Raki’s whispered voice had risen a full octave.
Ara nodded. “Perfectly.”
When he stepped closer to her, his movements were smoother, more like his normal self. Adrenaline could do that to you. Make you more than what you were.
The Drxar paused at a heavy metal door, and stood like a rock while the security beam scanned him. The door beeped, and they entered a brightly lit corridor.
The room beyond was more dimly lit, and Ara knew it was designed so that the dealer, Barten, could get a good look at the client before revealing himself.
But her nose warned her that all was not as she expected. The scent that drifted to her wasn’t Barten’s distinctive, smokey aroma, but something much more acidic.
She subtly adjusted her stance, reminding herself that she was the client, here to buy. Beside her, Raki picked up on her unease. He straightened to his full height.
“It’s okay,” she reassured, even though she really had no idea. It didn’t surprise her when the form that emerged from the room beyond wasn’t Barten’s.
Not even the same species. She’d only seen a Sisnal once before, the reptilian species wasn’t common. “Who are you?” she asked. “Where is Barten?”
“Barten is no longer with us.” What substituted for the Sisnal’s shoulders moved up and down in a shrug. “I have inherited his business. I am Eatar.”
Well, there were all kinds of possibilities hidden within that statement. Bartel had been a shrewd dealer and no one’s fool. If Eatar had killed him to ‘inherit’ the business, he had some impressive skills.
Ara was on the alert because she’d worked with Barten many times in the past and had come to trust him. She didn’t know this Sisnal at all. She could back out, go to her secondary dealer. But Barten’s weapons were generally a better quality.
“I am here to buy,” she said. “If your merchandise is up to my standards.”
“I think you will find it acceptable.” The creature’s Basic was slurred, but understandable. “I have the finest quality on the planet.”
Ara straightened. “We will see.”
If her skepticism offended him, there was no way to tell. But Ara knew how to handle these guys—you showed weakness, and they’d walk all over you.
“What is it you require?”
Ara offered a hand-written list. Datapad exchanges could result in implantation of sophisticated tracking devices. Information was power in places like this. You needed to be alert to keep your private data to yourself. She’d learned the hard way that written lists were far safer.
She watched the Sisnal closely as he read the list, but his scaled features revealed nothing. “I have these items in stock,” he said. “I can have them delivered to you.”
“I’d like the first five immediately.” She kept her stance deliberately relaxed. “The remainder can be delivered to the docking bay at the bottom of the list.” The last thing she needed was for him to interpret that correctly—that she was currently unarmed. But she had no choice—she was naked without any weapons. Bluff could only get you so far.
Eatar’s long, toothy jaws nodded up and down. “Very well. You can wait in the antechamber while I fetch them for you.”
The Drxar followed them as Eatar led the way into the room beyond him. It was lined with plasteel display cases featuring weapons from all over the cosmos. Ara had seen the cases before. They were designed to impress—and it always worked. Many of the weapons were rare.
“I will take payment now,” the dealer said, pausing before the walls of gleaming weapons. “Ten thousand four crunels.”
“Too much. I’ll give you ten thousand even.”
Sisnal spread his scaly fingers. “Please. The quality is unequaled. The knives alone—Ten thousand two.”
“Split the difference. Ten one.”
He tilted his head, and then nodded. Ara pulled out five small sacks from beneath her cloak, and then a sixth to count out several bars.
She’d taken one grut of a risk walking around with all this money, but it beat giving the dealer access to her electronic accounts. It was still a risk, even with most of it handed over. But if he ever wanted to deal with the Guild again, he’d treat her with respect.
The Sisnal took the money, bowed to her, and disappeared through a back door with her list. Ara turned to peruse the weapons on display. An impressive collection, better even than the last time she’d been here.
Half way around the room, her eyes caught and held on a sword.
It was prominently featured in the center of one case. Three feet long with a very slight, graceful curve, the blade was narrow and sheathed in a simple leather scabbard. The hilt was also bound in leather, dyed red, with a tiny tear near the guard. The guard itself was etched with the initials AK.
The tear would ordinarily be too small to be seen, but Ara knew it was there. Because the sword had once belonged to her mentor. The man who’d rescued her off the streets, and taught her how to survive in the real world. Who had died, saving her life.
She’d last seen that sword in her private quarters on her old ship. The day Karska had drugged her, and sold her to the Tanti.
That sword belonged to her. And it was the one thing she’d fight to keep.
Chapter Three Scene Three
Raki wasn’t feeling at all well.
He fought to keep his shaking from showing. He didn’t think a trembling Quarl would be an effective bodyguard to Ara as she spoke with the dealer.
Not that he was any match for that monster that stood behind them. He’d never met a Drxar, but he’d heard about them. You didn’t mess with them, and live.
He hoped Ara knew what the frek she was doing, because he sure as grut had no idea.
What were the chances she’d see him at the market? She’d seemed impressed by his disguise, which only served to confuse him more. She was Carabisk. Surely he wasn’t doing anything she couldn’t do?
He was so in over his furry head. He’d believed her when she’d told him she wasn’t an assassin, but she’d also admitted to killing if need be. And now he stood in a seedy looking building while she bought weapons from a dealer.
Ara might not be an assassin, but she wasn’t a innocent courier, either. She had to be a Player. He’d heard about them, too. Someone who acquired items as assigned by the Guild, regardless of whether they were officially up for sale.
Many Players ended up on the most wanted lists in various systems. If they were in the business for long enough, they became almost famous. Or infamous. Tales of their exploits provided entertainment for the average dinner crowd. The common person had difficulty sympathizing with the wealthy, regardless of who or what they were.
Did he really want to get entangled in this? He was already in enough trouble with the slipstream authorities, whose reach was long. If he joined Ara, he’d end up a wanted critter in a much different manner.
Maybe he could call upon his good deed in freeing her to ply her for a new identity, and then go his own way . . .
The dealer took Ara’s list and disappeared through a door. Ara turned to the display cases lining the walls, and perused the weapons.
Time passed. Raki trailed behind her until she froze in front of one of the cases, and stayed there.
Eatar reappeared with a sturdy, double handled bag.
The moment he did so, Ara snapped, “Where did you get that sword?”
The note in her voice sent chills down Raki’s spine. He followed her gaze to a sword hanging in one of the display cases.
Eatar’s reptilian gaze narrowed as he set the bag down. “It was a recent purchase. Are you interested in it? It is a rare sword.”
“I know. It was mine, until it was stolen from me.”
The Sisnal stiffened, and the reaction was mimicked by the Drxar behind them. Raki’s heart began to pound in a rather erratic fashion.
“That was unfortunate,” the dealer said smoothly. “But the rules are clear. I paid good coin for it. I can offer you a deal if you wish to purchase it back, but the sword is now mine.”
To Raki’s shock, Ara pulled her hood back. Any pretense at calm had abandoned her. Her antennae stood stiff as her blue eyes blazed at Eatar. “How much?”
Raki’s Quarl eyes bulged at the figure he quoted.
Ara’s lips pulled back from her long canine teeth. Behind them, the Drxar took a long step forward.
“That is full retail for that sword. The very least you could do is offer me cost, plus a finder’s commission.”
The Sisnal’s gaze darted from her, to his bodyguard. “That sword is worth every penny I ask. That you once owned it, and lost it, is not my problem. In your business, you should understand that.” He set the bag on the floor and straightened. “I will deliver the remainder of your purchases at first light tomorrow. Unless you wish to pay fair market value for the sword, I suggest it is time for you to leave.”
The Drxar loomed over them, the threat clear. Raki swayed from one foot, to the other.
Ara’s gaze never left the dealer, but for just a fraction of a moment, something sang between Raki and her. A burst of pure soundless music that surged between them, making his entire body vibrate.
Right before she leaped at the Sisnal.
The Drxar lunged for her, long arms reaching. And a tentacle shot from beneath Raki’s cloak.
He was as shocked to see it as the Drxar. In that fraction of a second, his mind had visualized something strong enough to stop that juggernaut of muscle. Apparently, it had settled on the tentacle from a sea creature he’d admired at a zoo long ago.
Admired, and touched.
It wrapped not around the arm, but around one of the Drxar’s thick legs. Raki rocked back, yanking hard on what his arm had become. The Drxar’s feet shot out from under it, and the creature went down. Hard.
He was on top of it before it could blink, the tentacle that was his left arm wrapping around its thick neck, his own, golden-furred, clawed hand digging into the meaty shoulder. A tail shot out from beneath his cloak, the end arching over his back to point a stinger directly at the Drxar’s left eye. The swollen poison sack behind it lacked sufficient venom to bring the creature down, but it wouldn’t know that.
“W-what are you?” the creature croaked.
“Move,” hissed Raki, “And you die.”
He didn’t recognize his own voice. His reactions had all been pure instinct. If he stopped to think about it, he’d likely fall to pieces.
So he rather determinedly did not think about it.
Ara had also been busy. She held Eatar in a headlock, and now leaned down to bring her pointed canines close to his neck. The Sisnal’s orange eyes rolled as he tried not to stare at them.
“I can offer you cost, plus a finder’s fee.” His slurred voice shook.
“That would be acceptable,” Ara snarled.
