Songs of Love & Death

Like whom she could trust. And whom she couldn’t.

With a frustrated sigh, she brought up ship’s schematics. Losing cargo would not only hamper their ability to get future hauling contracts, but it would damage the reputation that Quin had worked so hard to rebuild the past ten years. If Serri could have, she’d make Quin dump the containers on Jabo’s decking and bolt. But Jabo Station packed ion cannons. And she had no reason to believe leaving their cargo behind would ensure their safety.

She had Cargo One jammed when the ramp alarms beeped. “Shit! The motherless son of a Garpion whore is early.”

“Not Filar or his guards,” Quin told her as she tapped on the ship’s exterior vidcams. “Human male. No intention of violence.”

She glanced at Quin. He was using his Skoggi senses to take a reading. Their visitor might not intend violence, but… “I double-locked the corridor hatchway. How in hell—?”

She swung back to the monitors. It was as if her illegal tinkering resurrected a ghost. The scars on her heart suddenly felt fresh and raw. Her onetime close friend hadn’t changed much in six years, though his short dark hair looked a bit shaggier and he was definitely in need of a shave. But instead of a light green Widestar security uniform, he was in a black spacer jacket and dark pants. She’d bet, however, that his infamous charm hadn’t changed one bit. His lock-picking skills certainly hadn’t lapsed.

“You know him?”

She could tell by Quin’s concerned tone that he’d felt her surge of emotions. “He was friends with Rez Jonas when we all worked for Widestar.”

“Perhaps Rez sent him. Or he needs a job. Let him in.”

She hesitated, her mind seizing on something so bizarre she couldn’t discount it. She couldn’t believe—well, yeah, she could—that six years after she walked out on Rez, he’d still hold a grudge.

But if Rez Jonas wanted to get revenge, using his new position as Widestar’s director of Sector Three exports was a terrific way to do it. Sector Three—the Outrim region of the Dalvarr System—was the Pandea’s main territory. “Quin, has it occurred to you that Rez might have set us up?”

“All the more reason I wish to speak with this friend of yours.”

She shoved herself out of the command sling. If Quin was hurt because of some juvenile plan of Rez’s to get back at her, she swore she’d hunt the man down and pummel him out of existence.

“We have only ten minutes. See if you can’t jam Cargo Four.” She grabbed her Z9 laser rifle from the bridge’s weapons locker, then headed quickly down the corridor to find out just what Nic Talligar was doing on her rampway—and back in her life.

“IF YOU’RE HERE for a job, we’re not hiring.”

Nic studied Captain Serri Beck, standing in the Pandea’s airlock, and knew without a doubt that he was courting trouble. It wasn’t just her tone. It was the lethal Z9 in her hands. Best to get right to the point.

“Filar’s Bruisers are on the way here,” he told her as she stared at him, her dark eyes hard and cold. He remembered lights dancing in those same eyes, her demeanor playful, impish. That playfulness was gone, but her ability to spark his emotions wasn’t. He forced his focus from her to the shadowy airlock. “We don’t have much time. You can shoot me when this is finished.”

“Ammo’s pricey these days. Spacing you would be cheaper.” But she motioned him through the airlock with a hard jerk of the rifle’s tip.

He hesitated, a thousand things he wanted to say dying on his tongue. Things he should have said six years ago. Things he still couldn’t find a way to say now. He stepped past her into the freighter’s interior—the usual gray serviceable bulkheads with yellow-striped conduit crisscrossing overhead. His bootsteps clanked in time to hers on the decking gridwork. Something trilled and beeped farther down the corridor.

“I can help, but you need to trust me.” He knew that was asking a lot.

“That’s up to Quin, not me.”

He nodded, and moved on with the feeling that if it had been up to her, she would have shot him on the rampway.

It didn’t surprise him that Serenity Beck had hooked up with Quintrek James of Daq’kyree. Nic knew Quintrek’s history, and the rumors surrounding the former royal adviser’s resignation a decade ago. He couldn’t bring the details of the scandal to mind, only that Quintrek had walked away from a powerful and prestigious position on the Skoggi High Council.

Serri, like Quintrek, had a strong sense of justice. But, unlike Quintrek, she hadn’t waited to review all the evidence. If she had, her life might well have been different. Nic’s life… He pushed the thought away. He couldn’t change the past. The only thing he could do was to help her and Quintrek now—and try not to blow the mission in the process.

“Quin, this is Nicandro Talligar,” Serri said as they stepped over the hatch tread and onto the bridge.

Nic inclined his head in respect to the Skoggi perched in the command sling. “An honor, Esteemed of Pride Daq’kyree.”

A wide paw resplendent with furry white tufts waved dismissively. “Piffle. Little honor in being caught in Filar’s claws. Tell me what Rez Jonas should have, but didn’t.” Quin turned toward Serri. “Cargo Four won’t lock.”

“On it.” She swung away, pushing the rifle to one side as she dropped into a chair in front of a console.

“Wait. You have to let Filar take the cargo,” Nic said, as Serri angled back toward him. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. Think of it as a temporary inconvenience on the way to solving a larger problem.”

Dark narrowed eyes peered up at him. “The larger problem is Filar’s threatening to impound this ship, Talligar.”

“He won’t go that far. Trust me.”

“He will, and I don’t trust you. Neither does Quin.”

“Dumping cargo doesn’t engender client loyalty,” Quin intoned.

“There won’t be clients shipping anywhere in Sector Three if we don’t find out what Filar’s up to,” Nic countered. “You’re not the first to get hit with this scheme. But we tagged your cargo and can track it to whoever Filar sends it to—which is who we suspect is behind this.”

Quin’s whiskers twitched, but he was nodding. “I take it ‘we’ is more than you and Rez Jonas.”

Nic had briefly considered using that as cover, and probably could have convinced the empathic Skoggi that it was the truth. That was, after all, part of his job. But Nic’s lies to Serri—and the way Rez Jonas used her—always haunted him. She deserved honesty this time.

“Jonas has no idea I’m here. I’m a special agent with the DIA’s organized crime squad.” Cover blown. He could almost hear his boss roaring in anger from her plush offices at HQ, more than halfway across the Dalvarr System, adding his name next to Brackton’s on her list of incompetents.

He heard Serri’s snort of disbelief instead. “That’s a great pickup line, but we don’t have time for—”

“Trouble,” Quin said harshly, pointing to one of the screens on an opposite console where a line of hulking red-suited Breffans shoved through the freighter bay’s hatchlock, ram-cannons in hands. “Filar’s Bruisers have arrived.”

SERRI LISTENED AS Quin—being typically Quin—peppered the orange-freckled Bruiser chief with questions. But whether Quin was playing the part that Nic had asked him to, or whether he discounted Nic’s story and was actually trying to save their asses—and their cargo—Serri couldn’t tell.

Serri, being typically Serri, vacillated between righteous anger and an unexpected—and ridiculous—feeling of relief at Nic’s presence by her side. She didn’t know what to make of Nic’s story. But the fact that she didn’t trust him didn’t blind her to other facts: He was intelligent, resourceful, and had a definite talent for unorthodox solutions. They needed one of those—desperately—right now.

Quin’s arguments were changing nothing. The Breffans didn’t care about the legitimacy of the order they served. Not surprising, considering that the broad-bodied, leathery-skinned, freckled Breffans weren’t used in security for their empathy, but for their multilimbed dexterity. The purple-freckled female guard holding a rifle on Serri and Nic also held a pistol and a transcomm in two of her other three hands—if Serri as much as made a twitch for the rifle slung across her back, the guard could shoot her dead with two different weapons. The guard’s fourth