“A pleasure to meet you, Altav.” She held out her hand with a smile, shaking her head as one of the bodyguards gave a small growl.
Before he could take her delicate little hand though, Sparky shoulder-barged him aside. “A pleasure to meet you as well, Miss Ingrassia. But I’m afraid we really have to be going, our ship is about…” He shoulder-barged Skinny again. “To leave without us. Come on, big man. You know how pissy the boss gets if we’re late.”
“Of course,” Miss Ingrassia smiled politely, folding her hands elegantly in front of her as Sparky all but dragged him away. Skinny managed to get a look over his shoulder, meeting her gaze one last time before the crowds shifted like sand and swallowed her up again.
“What the fuck was that all about?” he hissed, turning on the human. “She was fucking gorgeous.”
“Yeah.” Sparky’s expression held none of its normal jokiness. “Gorgeous and fucking deadly. That there was the poison princess, daughter of the most brutal asshole in this sector. This place,” he motioned above his head to indicate the planet and systems around them, “is run by a group of ‘elected’ premiers. The Ingrassias are among the worst of them. Believe me, you do not want to fuck with them, especially that one. If her daddy found out you’d defiled his precious little flower, he’d reach down your throat to rip your cock and balls off and then feed them back to you. That’s if little miss butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth didn’t poison you first. Her daddy’s tried to marry her off three times so far. Each time, the groom never makes it to the wedding night.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Skinny looked back the way they’d come but there was no sign of the beautiful Miss. Ingrassia. Which was probably a good thing. He’d never had such a reaction to a woman before.
“So,” Sparky said brightly. “Books are this way. Let’s find your boy and get the fuck off this planet.”
It didn’t take them long to find Beauty. Sparky wove his way through the stalls like he’d lived on this backwater dustball all his life until they reached the back wall of the market. There, to his amazement, was a stall with actual books. And, pouring over them, was Beauty, his expression rapt as he looked along the decaying spines of the obsolete objects.
“Hey, handsome,” Sparky sidled up. “Looking for anything specific?”
Skinny sighed. Sparky really would hit on anything. Wouldn’t he?
“Ignore him, Beaut. You got everything you need?” he asked, saving the human from a kicking. Beauty might be the quiet type, but he didn’t like people invading his personal space without warning.
“Yeah, I’m good.” Beauty nodded, showing Skinny an armful of books. Quickly he paid the vendor with human currency. Skinny wondered briefly where he’d gotten it, but with Beauty, it was best not to ask.
“I see you couldn’t shake the human yet,” Beauty gestured toward Sparky as they turned and made their way to the front of the market. Skinny had informed the others by way of a triple tap on the side of his neck where his sub-dermal comms were implanted. By now they should all be making their way toward the front of the market so they could all head back to the ship.
“Oi! Stop! Yeah, you!”
A shout behind them made Skinny frown and turn. One of the bodyguards that had been with Miss. Ingrassia barreled toward them, bulldozing people out of the way and waving his gun around.
“Awww shit,” Sparky groaned. “This is gonna get ugly fast. Run!”
And that was when the whole marketplace started shooting.
13
Zero and Eris sprinted down the road toward the chaos and gunfire. Concern for his team warred with fear for the tiny woman running next to him, but she’d already more than proven herself in battle. He just wished she had her suit here. He’d feel far more confident not only with the backup of what amounted to a tank on legs but also because Eris would be safely wrapped up in a metal skin. He’d studied the schematics just as much as Red had while they were mending it, and with the improvements Red had made… yeah, you’d need a bunker buster just to put a scratch on its panels now.
It was a pity they were too far away for him to get an uplink with the ship and bring it here on remote. He checked as they ran, just in case. Yeah. Fuck. Too far away.
He doubled down, increasing speed even as he kept an eye out around them. He’d picked up chatter on the local security services comm channel about an issue at the market, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other dangers out there. Eris had a bounty on her head and he was sure the shifty-looking clerk at the comms office had informed someone about their arrival. Dammit, he should have done a search on the origin of that message she’d picked up. Yeah, sure, it said it was from her brother, but digital IDs could be faked… hell, even comm-vids could be faked. Between them, he and Skinny could cook something up that had the emperor admitting on screen that his favorite color was pink and he wanted to give it all up to go hug trees in the outer systems.
They could… and it was tempting. But since he was sure the emperor would personally track him down and show him what his intestines looked like, he hadn’t. He liked his innies to stay being innies, thank you very much.
Before they got halfway toward the turn to the flea market, the rest of the Warborne spilled out onto the main concourse, firing back at what seemed like the entire population of the outpost.
“Okay, who pissed off the locals?” Zero grinned as they
