Songs of Love & Death

that personal grudges had no place at the trading table—especially grudges with ex-lovers and ex-employers. Rez and Widestar fit both categories. Quin’s Skoggi senses had picked up nothing duplicitous during the transaction, though admittedly Rez made only a brief appearance, his assistant handling the details.

Unless Quin lied about what he sensed.

No, she couldn’t believe that. Quintrek James of Daq’kyree’s detractors had many unkind names for the former High Council administrator, but liar wasn’t one of them. If anything, Quin could be brutally honest, and his empathic ability tended to keep others honest as well. The fact that Quin could read her emotions never bothered her—and had proved handy in more than one sticky trade negotiation. Business was growing, enough that after six years as the Pandea’s pilot, she’d been able to buy a thirty-percent share of Quin’s transport business two months ago. The Star of Pandea was now her ship too.

So were the Pandea’s troubles.

She spotted Quin’s felinoid form in a booth at the Wretched Beast, one of Jabo Station’s more popular multispecies bars. He was large even for a Skoggi, his head and shoulders clearly visible above the glossy blue tabletop. Black fur covered his pointed ears, wide side ruff, and back, all the way to his plumy tail, but he had a triangle of white over his eyes and muzzle that extended down his chest. In almost direct contrast to his fur and his bulk was the wraithlike silver-skinned Kor in bright yellow robes sitting across from him.

Damn. She didn’t need an audience to their troubles. Worse, the Kor were chronic meddlers and Thuk-Zik was no exception. If she even hinted something was wrong, the yellow-robed male would latch on to her like a high-security docking clamp.

But Thuk-Zik was rising even as she approached. “I must be on my way. Good trading, Nom Quintrek. Nomma Captain Beck.” He moved away, the hem of his robe fluttering as his clawed feet tapped against the metal decking.

“Good trading, Nom,” Serri called after him, keeping relief at his departure out of her voice. Thank you, saints and blessed Vakare. She slid into the booth.

Quin was nudging his bowl of meat tea with one wide furry paw, causing the gelatinous liquid to shimmer. “You should have been here five minutes ago,” he said, with that lilt his voice held when he spoke Trade-Standard. “We had quite a chin wag about who’s brassed off at whom at Widestar Trading.”

She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one—especially another Kor—was within earshot, then lowered her voice. “Widestar is going to be brassed off at us. Filar has a grab order with our names on it—unless you have a spare three hundred thousand to make him go away. He knows damned well we don’t. He’ll be at our airlock in twenty minutes.”

The white muzzle raised out of the bowl. Golden eyes narrowed. “Tailless bastard!”

“Pay your tab. We need to get there before he does.”

THE VOICES IN Nicandro Talligar’s head were talking to him again. It came with the job.

“Status?” asked a familiar gravelly male voice.

Nic tucked himself into the recesses of a maintenance alcove in the corridor outside the Wretched Beast and flexed his left wrist, activating the tympanic implant’s transmitter. “Filar took the bait.”

“Any reason to believe he suspects?”

I’m not Brackton, he almost told Leonoso, but held back. His case agent didn’t need to be reminded of the mission failure at Able-Trade. But Nic wasn’t Depvar Brackton. He’d never blown his cover, not in five years, not even when threatened with death. After what happened at Widestar, the job was everything to him. The agency knew that and—he suspected—used that.

“Everything’s clean.”

“Keep it that way. Next contact in thirty-eight.” The transmission cut off with the usual sharp click.

He was about to move out of the alcove when a woman in a dark green flightsuit jogged by, her long dark braid swinging across her back. The ship’s patch on her left sleeve was emblazoned with a silver star. A very large black-and-white Skoggi in a matching dark green CI—command-interface—vest bounded on all fours by her side. The patch on his vest showed an identical silver star.

Nic’s chest suddenly went tight. He recognized and expected to see the Skoggi. Quintrek James—a familiar name in political circles—was owner of record of the Star of Pandea, a jump-rated short- hauler working the ass end of the Dalvarr System along with the usual assortment of pirates, mercenaries, and con artists. Which was the reason Nic Talligar was here—tracking cargo that the Dalvarr Intelligence Agency had, three days ago, deliberately placed on board Quintrek James’s ship.

But what in hell was Serenity Beck doing here? The answer was in her green uniform with its silver star emblem on the sleeve. She was ship’s crew, very likely ship’s pilot.

Death threats he could handle. But Serri Beck was trouble—a seriously unexpected complication. And one that made his chest go tight and his breath hitch.

If Nic thought Serri disliked him six years ago, there was no doubt in his mind that she was really going to hate him now! Damned shame he couldn’t return the favor. But six seconds of watching her sprint past him just destroyed six years of his hard-won sanity. And might well destroy his career.

He almost flexed his wrist to contact Leonoso. But he couldn’t—not for thirty-eight hours. Mission rules. Cursing himself silently, he waited for a boxy anti-grav cargo auto-pallet to whirr by before slipping out of the shadows to follow her. Some rules were about to be broken.

....

SERRI QUICKLY TAPPED in the codes to open the freighter bay’s airlock. Quin bounded through ahead of her, tail flicking as if to propel him forward. The Skoggi raced across the metal decking for the hulking deltoid-shaped ship that nearly filled the bay. Rampway lights, triggered by the thought-receptors in Quin’s vest, winked on as he approached.

“Try scrambling the airlock codes to give us time,” he called out. “I’ll bring main systems online.”

“They’ll fire the ion cannons at us before we even hit the lanes,” she called back as the airlock door wheezed closed. Not many stations packed a full complement of ion cannons. But Jabo had a reputation for using them to prevent captains skipping out on dockage fees.

Quin hesitated in the ship’s hatchway. “I’m not looking to escape but to obfuscate. If they can’t get in our cargo holds, they can’t rob us of our cargo.”

There was that. Serri programmed in a second override to the corridor airlock pad, then bolted for the rampway. If the manifests were accurate, Filar’s interest in their cargo made no sense: forty-seven containers of Tillithian fermentation essence. A small winery operating out of a hydroponics outpost was the documented recipient. Partial payment was in account on Jabo. It wasn’t the usual setup, but they needed to stop for fuel and water anyway. Even full payment wouldn’t cover Filar’s bogus importation tariff.

“Anything?” she asked Quinn as she jogged onto the bridge.

The Skoggi was hunkered down in the command sling, lights on his CI vest blinking in syncopation with lights on the ship’s consoles as the vest translated his thoughts into actions on a ship made for humanoid hands, not Skoggi paws. “I’ve jammed the access doors to bays two and three. One and four, however, are being enthusiastically uncooperative.”

“And Filar won’t find it unusual that we can’t get into our own cargo holds?” Her partner’s perfect plan suddenly held huge flaws.

“Not when we tell him the winery has the only unlock codes. To prevent us from selling the essence elsewhere, of course. Considering that we took prepayment.”

Yeah, with an invoice for unpaid tariffs served on her as soon as she left the bank. Serri hated coincidence. She just wished coincidence didn’t like her so much.

She leaned her arms on the back of the command sling. “Let me take a look.” Quin knew his ship, but Serri had learned a few tricks from a—onetime—friend who’d worked security at Widestar and had a talent for things less than legal. But if it kept the Pandea’s cargo in her holds, it was worth the heartache of resurrecting Nic Talligar’s memory. She still didn’t know what hurt more: the fact that Rez Jonas—her almost- husband—was having an affair with his sultry-but-stupid administrative assistant at Widestar, or that her closest friend since her university days provided excuses for her almost-husband and Sultry-but-Stupid.

She’d been in love with Rez for over two years. But she’d been friends with Nic for seven. All Rez gave her was heartache and shame. At least from Nic, she’d learned something useful.