Spy to Die For

But then she also didn’t know that as far as the Krell security feeds were concerned, she would be walking through the station with a five-foot-five, clean-cut, blond man. Jack hadn’t used that disguise before, at least not around Heller, so no one would be looking for it.

And he trusted Krell security to be so lax that when he did show up at the docking ring, they’d not even double check the feeds like most well-run places did. They’d think the six-foot-six black-haired guy belonged there.

The words “Krell” and “security” really didn’t belong together. It was more like Krell monitoring so that someone else’s security could use the feed after some crime happened. Or if some criminal wanted to track someone. Or whatever anyone paid for the monitoring feed.

Still, as Jack stepped into the empty corridor, his heart was in his throat. He had told Skye not to underestimate the Rovers. He had to be careful that he didn’t either.

At least he knew most of their tricks. He knew where to look for them.

Skye was already halfway down the corridor. She stopped, opened her hands in another What the hell? gesture. Only this one was a question, and an irritated one. Hurry up. Stop dawdling. You are afraid of being killed, right?

He could almost hear her say all of those things. He appreciated her silence, though. He didn’t need to answer her, which was a good thing. He hadn’t had a voice print to work with, so he hadn’t been able to modify his voice.

It was hard to track someone in a space station by the way that they spoke, but he’d done it in the past. He didn’t know if Heller had ever done it, but Jack would wager that other Rovers had.

And he had no idea which other Rovers were actually after him.

Skye had stopped in front of a wall panel. It looked no different from any other part of the wall. As he got close, she brushed the side of the panel with her hand, and the panel opened.

The back corridors. Every station had them, and they were usually easy to find.

In a place like Krell, they were predictably filthy and predictably unguarded.

He took a deep breath of the somewhat fresh air in the corridor, then followed Skye into the back passage. She could stand upright with inches to spare. He had to crouch in a way that actually twinged his back.

Normally, he wouldn’t walk through this at all. If he didn’t lean over far enough, his head would brush against a ceiling that probably hadn’t been cleaned since the station was built.

And then there was the smell. He couldn’t quite separate all of the odors out, but he recognized rancid grease right away. The fact that the back passageway smelled this bad meant that the environmental systems in here were worse than they were outside of the passageway, or that they had given up a long time ago.

He wanted to ask Skye how far they had to go, but he didn’t dare talk.

She fit easily between the walls and under that ceiling, and she didn’t seem bothered by the smell. Although he couldn’t quite tell what she was feeling, since he only saw her back.

He found himself watching her perfect little bottom, which was too much of a distraction for him. He couldn’t think about touching that bottom, being near that bottom, not right now, not when he was hunched over and walking on a squishy floor that he had trouble keeping his balance on.

He had to keep his eye out for anything unusual, a scraped-off area, other fairly fresh footprints, something, and he was having trouble concentrating on any of it.

So much for the fear-for-your-life thing focusing him. It focused him on Skye, and nothing else.

Still, he worked to maintain his concentration as she led him through tunnel after tunnel. He mentally repeated the directions they turned, and kept track of how far they walked. He had an enhancement that would also do that, but he didn’t want to activate it.

He had learned long ago that people could be tracked through the oddest enhancements, because most people never shut theirs off. That was why he had so few of them, and rarely used them.

Finally, Skye turned into a wider corridor. She looked over her shoulder (he envied that movement; he couldn’t do the same thing without scraping his head on a gushy wall), and put a finger to her lips.

As if he needed to be told to be quiet.

Then she stepped forward, one hand behind her in a stop and wait gesture. He wanted to stop and wait in a place where he could stand upright, or at least stand up a bit more. He wasn’t sure where that place was, but he knew this wasn’t it.

She left his line of sight for a brief moment, then came back and gestured him forward.

He stepped into an open area where he could stand more or less upright. He had to tilt his head sideways to keep from brushing the ceiling, but at least the ceiling here wasn’t covered in goo. He suspected that this part of the tunnels smelled better, but he couldn’t do more than suspect because the previous tunnels had ruined his nose for at least the next few hours.

He grimaced at the thought of that smell dogging him for the rest of the day. Dogging him, hell. He probably smelled like that after the walk through the tunnels.

Skye moved so close to him that he could kiss her. She didn’t seem interested, though. Instead, she brushed off his sleeves and gestured him to move his head closer.

He didn’t groan, but his back silently protested. He had to get close to that weird position he had been in just a moment ago.

“We’re about to go into the docking ring,” she whispered. “You let me talk, and don’t disagree with me or volunteer anything, no matter what I say.”

He wanted to say, What kind of amateur do you think I am? But he knew better than to speak up. She had no real idea who he was, and if she was from the Guild like she said, she thought him a dangerous and difficult amateur just because of his association with the Rovers.

So he nodded. She patted his arms, getting some more junk off them (he must have brushed against those horrible walls after all), then turned around.

He stood upright (more or less) and couldn’t suppress his sigh of relief.

She took his hand, pulling him forward, then opened the panel. At that moment, he silently cursed himself.

He should go out there first. A Rover could be waiting, one she didn’t know, and they would both die.

But Jack hadn’t thought of it until now.

And he hoped now wasn’t too late.

Chapter 18

The employee lunchroom behind the docking ring was empty. Still, Skye stepped into it gingerly, hoping no one hid nearby.

The lunchroom had been tacked on later, probably placed in what had been designed as a guard station. The ceiling was as high as the ceiling in the ring, which was to say, higher than the interior of Krell, and she knew that Jack would appreciate that.

One large, very clean table stood in the middle of the floor, which was also startlingly clean, startling not just because they were on Krell, but because Skye had never seen a clean employees-only lunchroom, not even in the Guild.

The blinking red lines were the only thing that moved in the room besides her. She stepped out of the panel and let out a sigh of relief.

She had paid off one of the docking ring employees to clear this room, but paying off someone didn’t mean they’d do what she asked. Hell, he might not have done what she asked—the room might be empty at all times except whenever lunch was—but she didn’t care.

She had gotten Jack this far.

Now came the tricky part.

She pulled him forward.

He stepped out of the panel, looked up, and then stood upright with such a sigh of relief that she felt for him. Then he brushed off the top of his head, as if he had touched that horrible ceiling in the passageways. He did