She braided her hair as she walked out of the door, uniform neat and in place, heading for the lift. A quick stop at one of the central promenade retailers on the way to her office snagged her a coffee and a pastry, and she whistled to herself as she walked through the door.
“Hey, beautiful,” a familiar voice made her freeze and then groan internally. One of the night shift officers had Jayce Allen in cuffs leaning up against the booking desk. The cells were arranged along the walls of the central area, which could be used as a holding cell itself in case of more significant incidents.
Allen grinned and winked at her. “Miss me?”
“Like a hole in the head,” she growled as she approached the desk, holding her hand out for the booking sheet. Her thigh pocket gave a buzz, indicating an incoming message on her personal display flex, but she ignored it for the moment. If it was anything important, the computer would let her know.
“See?” Sparky rolled his head on his shoulder to grin at the booking officer Mills. “Told ya she loves me.”
“Really.” For once Mills was unamused, shooting Sparky a glare.
“Can you confirm your name?”
Allen grinned. “Your gorgeous boss knows who I am.”
Eris read through the report. Public disorder offenses. Again. “He needs you to confirm your name. Legal reasons.”
He leaned back against the counter, propped on his elbows. “Sparky.”
She sighed and handed the sheet back to Mills. “Full name, not a nickname, or we’ll put you in the system as a John Doe, and it’ll be a forty-eight not a twelve-hour hold.”
Rolling his eyes at her, Allen turned around and leaned on the counter. “Jayce Theodore Allen.”
“Theodore?”
“Yeah, I’m a teddy bear. Wanna give me a cuddle?”
Mills slapped the form down on the counter, almost taking Sparky’s nose off. “Sign here.”
“Can’t write, squire. Will a thumbprint do?”
“Ignore him, Mills,” Eris said, heading toward her office. “He reads and writes seven languages, including assholian. Don’t take any of his crap.”
“Hey! I resemble that remark!”
She shook her head and shut her office door, cutting off Sparky’s protests. She watched as the tall guy straightened up and signed the form before Mills escorted him toward a cell opposite her office. Great, she got to look at the wise-cracking asshole all day.
But rather than gesticulate to her all day, the lanky blond settled down, stretching full length on the narrow bunk and covering his eyes with his arm. Why was he back? The last time she’d seen him he was leaving with a new crew, none of whom she’d been able to find in the station database or in any police records anywhere.
Her eyes narrowed as she pulled up the logs again and checked her searches. Given the dark rings tattooed around Allen’s upper arms, she’d even called in a few favors and checked a highly illegal copy of the Mirax Corp’s records. She needed to know if she had a potential problem on her hands. But… nothing, zip, nada.
In fact, nothing came up on any of the searches she’d run, even after extending them out to the entire Terran systems network. None of the three men Allen had left with existed anywhere, on any system.
“Impossible.”
She pulled the footage up again, studying the three men. They were, in a word, massive and heavily muscled. One had long hair and an almost pirate-like swagger while the other two were short-haired. One, the guy who’d spoken to Allen, was intense and focused… and all of them had a dangerous aura, but the final man, with the short hair and the gloves, drew her attention the most.
She leaned forward, studying the screen intensely. Not much footage of the three was available, only what she’d been able to recover from the promenade security feeds and some from the side corridors. All of it showed Allen chatting away to his friends, the group’s body language easy and relaxed as they walked. But the feeds cut out when they headed down to the docks. She knew they’d been on dock eight, but once again, the feeds down there were on the fritz, and she had no footage from that time period.
“Dammit!” she hissed, slamming her hands against the edge of her desk as the screen stilled on a freeze-frame. Her mystery man had chosen just that moment to look over his shoulder and up at the camera. She could almost believe the smile on his lips was for her, that he knew she was watching, but that was ridiculous.
Leaning forward, she frowned. “Who the hell are you?”
3
Tarantus Station was the same battered, shitty little outpost he remembered. Zero smiled as they dropped out of high speed a short way off the station, and it came into view. His hands, metal and organic, moved over the console with ease and confidence as he zoomed the view on the central screen to a close-up of the station. Light from a nearby star glinted off the metal, peeled paint, and rust patches telling the tale of maintenance left to the ravages of insufficient budgets and mismanagement. He was surprised some areas were even still habitable.
Concern filled him as his gaze scanned over the bulbous central core, with its habitation rings rising like arms from the main body. Where did Eris live? Was she in danger if an airlock gave or a bulkhead blew? His muscles locked up as he fought the need to gun the engines and get to her as quickly as possible. The sheer force of the need shook him. He’d never had such a response to a woman before.
“Any word from Sparky yet?” he asked over his shoulder as he smoothly dropped them onto the approach vector station control had allocated them. They were known here, so their transponder signal and arrival hadn’t caused any alarm. A lot of that was down to the Sprite’s chameleon systems.
Holographic emitter arrays dotted the hull and altered the appearance of the ship to that
