“Yes, blame me for forcing Tavi to accept more money for eight weeks of work than we’d normally make in two years,” Kee said over the comm, her voice tart. “Woe is us.”
I covered my laugh with a cough. Torran had to know we were communicating with each other, even if he couldn’t hear us, but his expression remained unreadable. “General Fletcher, meet my first officer, Elias Bruck. When I’m not around, you’ll follow his commands while aboard Starlight’s Shadow.”
A curt nod was Torran’s only response.
“You may want to move this somewhere more private,” Eli said. “You’re starting to draw interest.”
I’d noticed the increasing frequency of people walking by, but for all of our furious disagreement, Torran and I had kept our voices down.
“They’re not setting a single foot on my ship without an ironclad contract,” I growled with an impatient wave toward the Valoffs. “It’s not my fault the general refused a perfectly good one.”
“My ship is—” Torran started, only to stop when I made a disbelieving noise. I certainly wasn’t setting foot on a Valovian ship, contract or no.
For the first time, frustration showed in Torran’s expression. Welcome to the party.
Without warning, one of the Valovian soldiers broke from the group and headed toward the landing bay’s exit into the station. Eli stepped protectively closer to me. We were both a little jumpy with so many enemies nearby.
“Chira is going to secure us a neutral location,” Torran explained.
This was a Fed station, so as long as we remained in the station itself, it was unlikely to be a trap. And if it was a trap, well, then more fun for me.
“Message Starlight when you have the location. My team and I will meet you. And I suggest you think about accepting my boilerplate, or at least compromising on some of your ridiculous requirements, or this discussion will go nowhere, and you’ll just waste our time.”
Torran’s mouth tightened, but he inclined his head a fraction of a centimeter. Without another word he and his remaining team turned as one and headed for the door.
Well, that wasn’t creepy as all hell or anything.
Eli waited until they had cleared the airlock into the station before he spoke. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”
“No. But Kee’s right—it’s more money than we’ll make in two years and that’s if we fail to retrieve the item. If we get lucky and find it, we’ll be set for a while.”
“Damn straight,” Kee chimed in over the comm.
“Or we could all die,” Eli said drily.
Kee huffed out a breath but held her tongue. She and Eli were the opposite sides of the same coin. Kee was optimistic and idealistic while Eli was more pessimistic and pragmatic. They balanced each other, and they’d learned long ago that neither would change the other’s mind.
“Kee, keep digging for info while General Fletcher finds us a meeting room,” I said. “Eli, grab the levcart and I’ll help you unload the supplies. I want us to be ready to fly as soon as the meeting is over, whether or not we get the job.”
The supplies did not take long to put away. The levcart had been less than half full and most of it had been food, cheap staples that went a long way for not a lot of money. This month was especially lean. If we didn’t nab a bounty in the next few weeks, I wouldn’t even be able to buy us rice and generic protein next month.
I docked the levcart in its place in the cargo bay and then entered the main part of the ship. As soon as I cleared the hatch, I was attacked by a leaping ball of white fur. I caught Luna before her claws could find purchase in my tender flesh. She chittered at me as longing and a vague picture of a small rabbit-looking creature—Luna’s idea of food—flooded my mind.
Luna was a burbu, a mildly telepathic animal native to the Valovian sector. She communicated with simple emotions and images. The combo she was giving me right now meant she was hungry. When I didn’t move toward the galley, she sent me another image, this time of her empty food bowl. That one was relatively new, proving that she could learn and adapt her images.
“I’m going, I’m going,” I grumbled. Nearly a quarter of our food budget went to an animal that weighed less than five kilograms. “I just fed you this morning. Where do you put it all?”
Luna whined at me and rested her head against my chest. I snuggled her closer and buried my nose in her fur. She looked like a cross between an arctic fox, a small house cat, and a ferret, with a long slender body, a pointed snout, four slim legs, and a fluffy tail. Her fur was dense, soft, and as white as freshly driven snow.
Big violet eyes and adorable rounded ears that swiveled made her look harmless, but she had sharp, retractable claws and even sharper teeth. We’d all been gently nipped when we’d displeased our imperious mascot—usually by not feeding her fast enough.
I’d found her injured and alone while we were on a mission deep in enemy territory. I would have left her behind because I’d been having enough trouble keeping my squad safe, but then her pitiful plea had breached my mental barriers and it was all over. I’d had our medic patch her up, and I’d carried her kilometers in my pack, sure that she was going to die before we were safe.
She hadn’t.
She had also resisted all of my efforts to release her back into the wild once she was healthy. And she’d taken an instant dislike to being left behind, which meant many of our missions were accompanied by a white shadow. My commanding officer had looked the other way only because Luna turned out to be an excellent tracker and early warning system.
Kee popped her head out of the large utility closet she’d converted into her personal engineering control room and systems hub. Her pale skin and rainbow-colored hair glowed in the overhead lights. “Don’t believe her. I just fed her thirty minutes ago.”
I pulled back and looked in Luna’s eyes. “You sneaky little devil. No more food for you until dinner.”
Luna chirruped at me, a lilting trill that sounded like no animal I’d ever heard, and sent me another wave of longing. I shook my head at her. “Not going to work. Dinner.”
Luna squirmed in my arms and I put her down. She sent me a baleful look and leapt two and a half meters straight up to the narrow walkway I’d installed along the top edge of the hallways for her. She liked to be tucked up against the ceiling—the better to ambush her prey.
After Luna stalked out of sight with a final twitch of her tail, I turned to Kee. “Find anything interesting?”
She grimaced. “Not much. Whatever is going on, Torran’s people are keeping it close.”
Eli came in behind me. “Or nothing is going on and it’s an elaborate trap.”
I held up a hand before they could devolve into arguing again. “Assuming it’s not a trap, who do we need to hunt a thief?”
“Lexi,” they both said at once.
“I agree. Kee, track her down, see if she’s available, what her current rate is, and where she is.”