Spy to Die For

known we had to activate the escape system and the dangerous route program at the same time, and compare them, I would have,” she said.

“You didn’t,” he said. “But you’d think they’d be linked somehow so that they would activate at the same time.”

“You would think that.…” She frowned. “Unless he sometimes had to do business on these places.”

Jack let out a small laugh. “Of course he did. Under an alias.”

“Or two. Or three.”

“Well, shit,” Jack said, and he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at those ships which had gotten so much closer that they no longer fit in the magnified viewing screen. “Obviously, there’s a lot more here that we should have known.”

“We were trying to find out…”

He put a hand on hers, sending a jolt of electricity through her. “We didn’t. I’m not blaming you.”

She knew that. She wasn’t sure why she was so defensive, and then she realized what was going on.

She felt like she had made a mistake. She hadn’t investigated clearly enough. She had focused in the wrong direction.

She had thought about getting Jack away from those Rovers and she had thought about stealing a ship so that no one on Krell would catch them, thinking they’d dump the ship as soon as possible. That was why she hadn’t worried about who owned the ship.

She figured the owner would come after the two of them and never find them.

But she hadn’t done her due diligence. She hadn’t figured out who she was stealing from.

And, granted, the last time she had done anything this elaborate, she’d had her parents as backup. They had probably done due diligence together or maybe, knowing them, they hadn’t cared.

“How do you make this thing smaller?” Jack asked, looking at the screen magnification. She appreciated the fact that he did not sound panicked. She might have sounded panicked in his shoes.

She tapped on the navigation board. The ships now fit into the raised-up screen, but they kept moving forward.

“I can’t read this language or I’d help you here,” Jack said. “If you show me what to do…”

She glanced at him in surprise. Languages were a major part of Guild training. But of course, he’d had no formal training, and he probably used translation devices when he researched.

“I don’t have the time at the moment,” she said. She needed to do something else first. She needed to find out what Rapido’s defensive capabilities were. She knew in general, but now she needed to know in specific.

“If you get hurt,” he said, “I can’t run this thing. At least show me the automatic pilot.”

She tapped the screen. “I just set the language in the autopilot to Standard so that you can read the instructions. If you need the automatic pilot, you give it one of the aliases and then tell it to engage.”

He looked at her sideways. “What’s more important than showing me?”

“Figuring out what the hell weapons systems we have.”

“There are a dozen ships out there,” he said. “Weapons aren’t going to help us. At least two of those ships are military issue.”

She glanced up. He was right. The ships out front were standard space yachts, but they were being followed by two military ships.

“Those military ships could be after the space yachts,” she said.

“Or they could be after us,” he said. “This thing have shields?”

“Good ones, if he kept factory issue,” she said.

“Then let’s get out of here,” Jack said. “We’re not going to use weapons. You told me this ship was built for speed, and we need to run.”

He was right; she knew he was right. She just had to take action.

“We need to figure out where we’re going,” she said.

“Somewhere not on that danger map. We don’t want to get caught like this again,” he said. “And we need to go somewhere that will let us sell a hot ship without turning us over to the local authorities.”

She felt a thread of irritation. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”

“If I knew more about the sector, I’d help,” he said. “But I’m a little constrained here. I don’t know the language on this ship, I can’t fly the damn thing, I don’t know much about the Brezev Sector, and I really don’t want to be blown to smithereens.”

“Details, details,” she said, and activated the screens. Then she studied the controls. “There is a maximum speed here, but I don’t know how long this ship can sustain it.”

“I really don’t give a damn,” he said. “Get us the hell out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and slapped her palm on the speed controls. The ship jerked, which shocked her, and then everything became ribbons of light.

Damn. If the speed indicator on the navigation board was correct, they were going faster than she thought possible.

She hoped the ship could sustain this speed.

She hoped to hell none of those space yachts could match the speed.

Because if they could, this ship wouldn’t protect her and Jack for long.

Chapter 26

Skye wobbled as the ship hit its maximum speed, and Jack put out his hands to catch her. He really needed her now. He hadn’t been kidding about that. He couldn’t fly this thing, and he had no idea where the weapons were located even if he did figure out how to fly it.

Then there was the matter of a destination.

“Where’re we going?” he asked. He wouldn’t insult her by double checking that she had compared their new destination with that danger map. He hoped like hell she had.

“It’s a place called Zaeen,” she said. “I haven’t been there since I was a child.”

“Great,” Jack said. He hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic. He just couldn’t help himself.

“It’s the only place I could think of,” she said.

Before he had wondered if she felt defensive. Now he knew she did. Defensiveness didn’t suit her. Besides, she had nothing to be defensive about.

“You’re saving my ass, you know that, right?” he said.

She shook her head, as if she didn’t want to hear it. Her hands kept flying along the navigation board. “I feel like I’m the one who has been constantly putting it in jeopardy.”

He stared her for a moment. “Anyone following us?”

“Not that I can tell,” she said, still looking at the screens. “Nothing’s showing up on any of the sensors.”

“And unless someone greets us when we reach our destination, we’re home safe,” he said. “There’s no way they can know where we’re going, right?”

“Oh, hell,” she said. “There’s always a way. You know that. They can tap into our comm system, and they could view the navigation, and—”

“I suppose,” he said. “But you know how hard that is, and I do as well. Besides, it’s nearly impossible when you weren’t planning for it, at least from that distance.”

She raised her head and looked at him. “You’re a ‘glass-is-always-half-full’ kinda guy, aren’t you?”

He laughed. Rikki had accused him of that. Being too optimistic had hurt him in the past, particularly when someone talked of adopting him as a child. But he always felt he was better off believing the best of people rather than the worst.

“Do you really see yourself as a ‘glass-half-empty woman’?” he asked her.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, glancing at the navigation. “I’m not sure there’s anything in the glass at all.”

He wanted to take her in his arms, and for the first time, the feeling wasn’t sexual. He wanted to comfort