Chapter 3

Mack leaned on the railing of the atrium on U6 north and listened to the parrots screech. Did the damn things never sleep? Or were there simply so many of them, they were able to set up shifts for the sole purpose of annoying him?

"Surveying your kingdom, Admiral?"

Another annoyance. He recognized Johnna Hebbs's somewhat nasal, slightly high-pitched voice behind him. Her light remark could be taken as a friendly gibe. But this was Hebbs. And he was Rynan Makarian, the man who'd disrupted her kingdom, among other things. He angled around toward her.

She was almost as tall as he was. But because he leaned against the railing, his eyes were on the same level as hers. They were a muddy brown, he noted. Uninteresting and flat in a face otherwise proclaimed to be exotically beautiful. Though it was a beauty that seemed tarnished, especially compared to Gillaine-

He halted his thoughts. Right now, Gillaine Davré probably hated him as much as Hebbs did. If he were lucky, the two would never get together and compare notes.

Hebbs stepped next to him, pressed her palms against the railing. Her long dark braid fell over one shoulder. "Why wasn't I informed you'd placed Davré's Serendipity under impound?"

"You just were." He'd come straight to Ops from the repair bay on D11, although informing Hebbs had been low priority on his list. She was CQPA, not Fleet. "The ship's in one of my repair bays. It's my problem."

"Trying to spare me extra work, Mack? Your consideration is touching." She regarded him from under thick lashes. It was a seductive pose, a practiced seductive pose. She'd used it a lot on him, four months ago.

Now, it was a seduction underscored with a message. Johnna Hebbs had changed her game, but not her methods.

"I'm dealing with a potentially volatile issue out in Runemist. The Serendipity came through there."

A low trill of laughter bubbled from Hebbs's throat. "Smugglers are a way of life out here. They're not volatile if you know how to handle them. Which I do." Her lashes dipped. "I know how to handle a lot of things. Very well. Shame you chose to do things the hard way. Admiral."

He was saved from commenting by the raucous screeching of parrots as they flew past, downlevel.

Hebbs pushed away from the railing, cast him one last dismissive glance, then sauntered down the corridor.

Another flash of color. Bright green and red. Uplevel. Must be shift change.

* * *

All the good stuff took place downlevel. That was true of most stations and Cirrus, Gillie noted as she threaded her way through the residents strolling noisily on Down 10, was no exception, especially after midnight.

Midnight was arbitrary, a dirtside term, but stations had to function with inhabitants who still carried those planetary rhythms in their lives. Cirrus's twenty-six hour cycle allotted the midnight to 0500 hours as off duty for most.

But off duty didn't necessarily mean sleep.

The station directory, glowing on the wall opposite her bay on Down 11, showed the open center atrium ended at Down 7. D7 as it was called. Everything in Upper was labeled either "officers" or "executive." Decks just above and below main atrium, midpoint in Cirrus, held the pricier, more respectable restaurants and stores.

D7 was the cutoff. The end of respectability. The beginning of the Zone. She'd picked up that unofficial designation from Simon's perusals.

The Zone was exactly where Makarian didn't want her to go. So go there she would, just as she always had.

The Khalar hadn't minded, three hundred and forty-two years ago, on Traakhalus Prime. Though her tendency to go pub-crawling in the districts bordering the newly constructed Port Armin spaceport had given the Khalaran chancellor a few tense moments.

She'd made sure the white-haired man understood her priorities. "How can I function as an advisor to your people if I don't know them?"

After six years of hoisting beers, shooting billiards, designing ships and defense arrays, and attending to numerous births, deaths, weddings and commencements, she'd gotten to know them very well.

She thought they knew her.

Obviously, she was wrong. They'd deified her. Naming a pub in her honor would've been far more appropriate.

There were long lines at the lifts. She heard grumbles about never-ending malfunctions as she passed by. Stairs on Cirrus seemed to be the preferred method. She took the closest set up to D9. At the top of the stairs was a cluster of kiosks almost identical to the ones at the stair landing on D11.

A voice boomed out from behind a well-laden kiosk. "Runestones! Genuine wardstones! Get guidance from the Lady Goddess!"

The only difference was D9's kiosk's prices were a half-credit higher.

"That's 'cause we got the real ones here." The merchant's small eyes glinted. He leaned conspiratorially toward her, as if letting her in on a great secret. "Thems below, they're fakes. But we got real ones. Vedris, Ladris, you name it."

She could name them in her sleep if she had to. Knowing the names and the powers of Raheiran runestones was innate to her. Each held a separate essence, each worked a separate magic: Vedri, Ladri, Nevri and Khal.

The merchant's flat wardstones were in a separate velvet lined tray from the square runestones.

"Lifestones?" she asked, not seeing any of the purple-tinged crystals. Not seeing anything real at all on the trays before her, actually. For one thing, if the stones had been genuine Raheiran, she wouldn't be able to stand so close to them without their sudden glow giving away her heritage. But she hadn't sensed anything when she'd scanned the kiosk, and had known even before she stepped up to the rectangular stand that she could safely do so.

Still, if the merchant kept lifestones in a metal casing...She took a step back, cautiously, as he reached under the counter.

The beady-eyed merchant smiled as he brought up a plastic tray. "You're gettin' into high prices with them, my lady."

His use of the honorific startled her for a moment. Then she realized it was part of his sales pitch.

"How much?"

"Small ones start at seven thousand."

His price startled her for much longer than a moment. "That's-" Blasphemous, she almost said but caught herself.

"A good deal, considering what them priests charge, eh?"

Priests charge? For a healing through lifestones? Anger surged through her.

I only discovered that bit of information myself a short time ago.

Simon! That's beyond insulting. A sacrilege. It's-

Three hundred and forty-two years later, my Lady. As you so aptly reminded me earlier, things have changed.

Things suck. She turned abruptly away from the merchant before she voiced her thoughts. And her ire. She needed a drink. And she needed to get to know the Khalar, all over again.

The flashing sign over the wide doorway read "Fifth Quarter. Shots. Beers. Billiards." She pushed up the sleeves of her gray shipsuit and strode inside.

The Fifth Quarter was wide, but not very deep. The bar itself looked to be constructed of sheets of leftover bulkheading-medium gray in color and dotted with bolt studs. Two billiard tables sat under low-hanging lights to her left. Real tables with bright green felt tops, not holosims. Games were in progress on both. She watched for a moment. Neither was going to end any time soon. A flicker of movement behind her signaled stools had opened at the bar.

She hoisted herself up onto one. A bar droid wiped a rag over the counter in front of her. "How can I serve you, miselle?"

It took her a moment to place the unit. The droid was humanoid in form, barrelchested and long-armed; a modified version of a Raheiran K3T-0. She'd been working on a prototype with a Khalaran robotics firm when the Fav'lhir had made their presence known. At least some of her centuries old legacy was correctly intact. "The house's best ale, Keto."

"My pleasure, miselle."

What's the currency here, Simon? If she hadn't been so upset over the runestone seller, she would've thought to ask that before she sat down.

Credits or novads, if you want to use hard coin.

Well, that hadn't changed. Though the novads she had in her pocket might well be auctioned off as antiques to a coin collector. She didn't want to open a credit file on station. It left a readable trail. Besides, she didn't intend to stay on Cirrus that long.

She fingered the small octagonal coins in her pants pocket, glanced at a stack sitting in front of a plump woman with bright red hair. They were close enough to her to grab the image of the date-stamp, duplicate it. The coins grew warm in her hand, then cooled.

Keto brought her ale.

"How much?"

"Six and a half, miselle."

Prices had gone up. A decent ale used to be no more than two novads. Ah well. She spilled the coins on the bar.

The redhead's name was Petrina. Her companion, Tedmond, returned from the billiard tables with an unhappy expression on his well-lined face.

"From Ziami, are you?" Petrina sucked the foam off her ale. "Know Bo Grismar, of Grismar Trade?"

Hell. She'd grabbed onto Ziami in her mental forays while still in sickbay. She'd remembered it as a remote quadrant that had little to do with the Khalar, other than some minor trading. What she'd found in Cirrus's databanks led her to believe that hadn't changed. It had seemed the perfect home for her to adopt. She was beginning to suspect those databanks had some serious, deliberate, omissions.

"Not personally. Though my cousin probably does. He's the socializer. I spend most of my time in the lanes."

"Thought everyone in Ziami knew Bo."

Gillie broke her first rule, sent a hurried apology to her Goddess. The real one. Forgive me, Ixari. She smiled at Petrina, probed only far enough to pull an image from her mind. "I know who he is. Just don't know him personally. Big guy, with a beard. Smokes those gods-awful cigars." She wrinkled her nose.

She had to break her "sanctity of privacy" rule three more times in the next hour. There was much she didn't know about Ziami. And about the rim-traders that ran between there and Cirrus. No wonder Makarian had distrusted her so quickly.

"Things are going down the shitter, what with 'Make it Right' Makarian here now." Petrina was on her third ale and content to talk to Gillie, rather than ask questions. "At least, that's what my Teddy says." She glanced back at her Teddy, lining up a shot at the billiard table.

"Make it right?" Gillie made a mental note to read the rest of that file on Makarian as soon as she returned to her ship.

"Big Fleeter with even bigger brass balls. Just made admiral, you know. 'Course then they kicked his ass out here with us lowlifes." Petrina snorted. "We're not what he's used to. And we don't want him here. Not that Mack ain't half bad to look at. It's that attitude." She pointed one finger at Gillie's face.

Gillie knew the attitude, had to agree with Petrina's observation, as well as the one that Makarian... Mack? She smiled to herself. She liked that. As well as the one that Mack wasn't half bad to look at. He was, in truth, extremely pleasant to look at. But there was, as Petrina said, that attitude. Not unlike the pantrelon she'd likened him to earlier, Mack appeared both attractive and dangerous.

"He's got my ship on impound," she admitted.

"You who they towed in earlier? Who hit you?"

"Never got a visual on them. They jammed my eyes. And my ship's not able to talk yet." Gillie knew freighter lingo, trusted it hadn't changed much over the years. That is, centuries.

"That stinks, Gillie. Mack's giving you a hard time? Figures. Traders kept Cirrus alive, long before Fleet ever decided to put their credits here. Traders, and, of course, those devoteds who come out here every year for the Celebration of the Sacred Sacrifice." Petrina cocked her head to one side. "That why you were headed here? Just missed it, you know. Ended three days ago."

Three days ago...Three days ago she'd been flat on her face on her ship's bridge. "No, I-"

"Maybe you can catch the next one. Pack 'em in good here. Runestone sellers make out with big profits. Lot of 'em are still hanging around, but most'll be gone by next week."

"I saw them."

"Buy any?"

Gillie shook her head.

"Really? Thought you would, well, it's your hair color." Petrina flicked a finger at Gillie's hair. "Lot of the followers change theirs to that blonde, 'cause it matches hers, you know."

She didn't. No, she did. The infamous and unlikely Lady Goddess Kiasidira.

"But, of course, they wear it real long like she did," Petrina continued. "Yours is short."

Gillie hadn't worn her hair long in almost five years. Three hundred and forty-seven years ago. Either way, the Khalar had to be working off some very old holos. That thought stopped her for a moment. If the Khalar had holos of her, why hadn't anyone recognized her?

She glanced quickly around, suddenly feeling very exposed. No one glanced back.

They wear it real long, like she did, Petrina had said.

Like she'd worn it in that gods-awful staged holograph taken her first year on Traakhalus. Swaddled in a thick purple Raheiran mage robe, her sword raised, face turned skyward, she'd felt like an idiot. A circus display. An overdressed avenging angel.

That had to be the holo. Even she wouldn't have recognized herself.

Tedmond returned, a handful of winnings jingling, and nuzzled his face into Petrina's neck. Her answering giggle was surprisingly soft and lilting for a woman of her size.

Then the decking under the bar suddenly lurched, hard. Glasses crashed to the floor, liquid and foam flying, spilling. Bottles rattled, shattered. People tumbled from the stools, swearing as they thudded onto the floor.

Gillie grabbed the edge of the bar, hung on. Someone careened against her. Screams filled the air. The lights over the billiard tables swung precariously, sickeningly.

Then all movement stopped. The only sound that could be heard was the discordant blaring of the red alert siren. And the low hum of the station's ion cannons powering up.

Simon?

Fav'lhir.

Shit. Images of their Raider-class fighters, studded with weaponry, filled her mind. Somehow, they'd followed her. Found her. Gillie released her hold on the bar and bolted for the corridor, her heart pounding almost as loudly as her boots.