Chapter Nineteen #2
“Because the road ahead closes for those who arrive empty.”
Jack looked at Madelaine. “Is that a Paladin thing?”
Her face had gone very still. “I don’t know.”
Veyre lifted one hand. “Do not return to Verdara. Trust the Red Harp Nebula, it will always play true. And when the silent moon asks for your name, give it his.”
Jack pointed at himself. “His as in mine?”
The mirrored slits angled toward him. “Jack Grey is harder to erase than hers.”
A chill moved through him.
Madelaine’s voice dropped. “Who are you?”
“A debt paid before it is owed.”
“That is not an answer,” Jack said.
“No,” Veyre agreed. “It is not.”
The broker shoved the hover sling around the counter. “Take your cubes and get out. Dock patrol shifted early. If anyone asks, I never saw you.”
Madelaine grabbed the front handle of the hover sling. Jack took the rear.
The moment his fingers closed around the bar, alarms began to shriek somewhere beyond the exchange.
Red lights flashed across the ceiling.
The broker cursed. “Too late.”
Jack looked at Madelaine. “Too late for what?”
“Move,” Veyre said.
The door behind them burst open.
Two station enforcers in plated gear filled the entrance, followed by a third figure wearing a Verdarian dust cloak. Given that most of the folks on Verdara looked like they made their own clothes, it was clear that the hierarchy in charge dressed better.
Jack’s stomach dropped.
The thief who’d stolen from them obviously knew people in high places. It could be Dirk Zandis, but in this case it didn’t matter. They were a threat in the here and now.
The dust-cloaked figure pointed directly at Madelaine. “That courier is carrying restricted Paladin property. I have a seizure warrant.”
The station enforcers raised their weapons.
Jack tightened his grip on the hover sling. “Madelaine,” he said in a low tone. “Get ready to move.” He didn’t know what might happen, but figured they needed to run, not stop and discover what a seizure warrant was. It sounded made up.
Luckily, Veyre moved first. He did not draw a blade. He did not fire a pistol. He simply stepped into the space between Jack, Madelaine, and the enforcers.
All of a sudden, smoke poured from beneath his robes. Not fog. Not steam.
Smoke. Thick and black and curling with sparks of blue light.
The enforcers shouted. One fired. The shot vanished into the smoke with a hiss and didn’t come out the other side.
Veyre’s masked face turned slightly toward Jack.
“Run. Now.”
Jack did not argue. He and Madelaine shoved the hover sling forward and bolted.
The sling was not designed for elegance. It bounced, swerved, and nearly took out a table of glowing jars as they burst from The Burnt Saint Exchange into the concourse. Behind them, smoke billowed from the exchange, swallowing the doorway and everyone inside it.
Madelaine ran at his side, hair flying loose from its tie, one hand on the sling, the other reaching beneath her jacket.
“No shooting unless we have to,” Jack said.
“Who said I was reaching for a weapon?”
“What else is in there?”
“Four other weapons.”
“Madelaine.”
“And a lockpick.”
“This is why I love traveling with you.”
She glanced at him, breathless. “This is not traveling. This is fleeing.”
“But we’re running with fuel. That makes it an upgrade.”
They raced through Crooked Halo’s lower level as the station seemed to rouse against them. More alarms sounded. Shutters slammed down over shopfronts. Vendors grabbed merchandise. Someone yelled in a language Jack did not understand, though the tone strongly suggested move or die.
A pair of armed station enforcers appeared at the end of the concourse.
Madelaine yanked the sling left into a side passage so narrow the fuel cubes scraped both walls.
Jack slammed his shoulder into the corner and kept moving. “Ow. Fine. Didn’t need that bone anyway.”
“The dock lift is just ahead.”
“Is it guarded?” Jack asked, hoping against hope it would be empty. They deserved a boon.
“Almost certainly.”
“Great. Have to love the consistency of never catching a break when we’re running.”
They burst into a maintenance atrium with a circular lift platform in the center. Above it, levels rose like corroded ribs around an open shaft. The dock signs flickered overhead.
Docks 1-9.
Madelaine slapped the lift control.
Nothing happened.
She slapped it again.
A screen blinked.
Access denied.
Jack stared at it. “Maybe ask it nicely or use light taps instead of slaps?”
“No.” Madelaine pulled out the lockpick. It unfolded into something thin and silver with a glowing blue tip. She jammed it into the panel.
“Thirty seconds,” she said.
Behind them, boots thundered, echoing down the hall, getting closer and closer.
Jack looked back. “I can confidently say we do not have thirty seconds.”
The narrow corridor filled with movement.
Jack grabbed the nearest object—a metal bucket full of oily tools—and hurled it down the passage. It hit the floor with a crash, scattering wrenches and bolts. The guard in front stumbled. The second slammed into him.
Madelaine’s lockpick sparked.
“Anytime now, sweetheart,” Jack said.
The lift roared to life beneath them.
“Yes. I got it,” she said. “See. We’re okay.”
“Indeed, but I helped by throwing oily gross tools into the corridor.”
Madelaine grinned at him. They dragged the sling onto the platform just as it shot upward. Weapon-fire cracked below. Sparks flew from the railing, but they were on their way out with the fuel they needed.
Jack crouched over the fuel cubes. “I would like to officially compliment these bauxite cubes for being worth the trouble.”
“Don’t get attached.”
“Too late. I’m naming this one Bert.”
“Absolutely not.”
The lift screamed to a stop at the docking ring.
They shoved the sling off the cargo lift and ran toward their ship.
Dock seven was fifty yards away.
Between them and their ship stood three more station enforcers.
Madelaine slowed.
Jack did not.
“Jack—”
“I know, I know. No fights unless I can finish them.”
“And if you break it, you buy it,” she reminded him.
He let go of the sling, stepped forward, and raised both hands.
The enforcers aimed at his chest.
Jack smiled his friendliest Alienn, Arkansas, smile. “Gentlemen. We are having a very complicated day, and I would love to solve this without anyone getting hurt, especially me.”
The middle enforcer snarled, “Step aside.”
“See, I would, but the woman behind me is terrifying, and I promised to stay close. So no can do.”
Madelaine muttered, “Jack.”
He kept smiling. “Also, I’m fairly sure that smoke fellow behind you is on our side.” He shrugged as if he wasn’t in trouble.
The enforcers hesitated, then all three of them turned. There was no one behind them.
Jack lunged the moment they looked away. Not at them. For the hanging cargo hook clipped to the wall. He yanked it free and slammed the release. A net of empty cargo sacks dropped from overhead, tangling the enforcers in a flailing heap of armor, curses, and bruised dignity.
Madelaine stared at him as if impressed, but wondering at his skill for dumping empty cargo sacks on their enemies.
Jack grabbed the sling again. “What? I’ve been around Aunt Dixie during every charity rummage sale fundraiser setup. I know a useful pulley when I see one.”
“Of course you do.” And this time, Madelaine laughed.
It was quick, breathless and completely inappropriate, given their current location and dire surroundings. It was one of the very best sounds Jack had heard.
They ran the last stretch to the ship. Jack keyed the hatch. It opened too slowly for his taste.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered.
As soon as the gap was wide enough and even before the ramp was fully settled on the ground, Madelaine leapt onto it, yanking her end of the sling partly aboard.
Jack followed pushing the carrier forward onto the ship inside as far as it would go.
They unloaded Bert and the other two cubes unceremoniously next to the ramp opening of the ship.
Together they pushed the hover sling off the end of the ramp and let it float away as a shot struck the dock wall beside them.
Jack ducked. “That was close enough to part my hair.”
“That means it’s past time to go.” They ran back up the ramp and Madelaine slapped the hatch control. The door sealed.
She pushed one of the bauxite cubes into the receiver at the base of the control panel, leaving the other two for Jack. He shoved them into the storage locker, fast as he was able, as Madelaine got the ship ready to leave.
Once the two cubes were secure, he ran for the cockpit.
Jack dropped into the co-pilot’s chair as Madelaine threw the ship into launch prep. The engines coughed, then caught as the fresh cube fed into the system.
The fuel readout surged from the red it was when they arrived to a lovely green. Jack had never loved a color more.
Dock clamps began to release, then stopped with an ugly grinding sound.
Madelaine’s hands flew over the controls. “They’re locking us in.”
“Can you override it?”
“Not yet. And I don’t think I want to go out and try the lockpicks this time.” She quickly typed rows and rows of code into the ship’s onboard computer, but every time she hit Return, it said Denied on her console.
“Let me try,” Jack said. Rapidly, he keyed in several secret computer codes that might work. Usually, they overrode everything.
The loud click of their ship being released from the dock sounded like music.
“Got it,” he said when his console read Accepted. The ship shuddered and drifted away from the dock and all of the station enforcers who watched in impotent fury.
“Great job, Jack. When you said you worked with computers, you didn’t say you were a wizard.” Her fingers worked to get them flying away from Crooked Halo Station.
“A self-taught wizard, thank you very much.”
Madelaine tried to punch it, but they didn’t move.
“Now what’s wrong? Why aren’t we moving very fast away from this terrible space station?”
“I don’t know.” Madelaine reset and tried again. The engines whined but nothing happened. They were free from the dock; why didn’t they move?