The Stowaway (2 page)

A tear slipped out before she could stop it.

“Aw! Now, come on, none of that. After a while you’ll settle in. You’ll see.”

“I’ll miss you, Mother.”

“Oh, baby! I’ll miss you too. Don’t worry, we’ll see each other. Thebia is set to hold next season’s Agricultural Council meeting. Your fathers have agreed I could come along and see how you’re getting on.” Mother’s arms closed around Rachel in a tight hug. “Now, no more tears. You’ll ruin your make-up.”

Rachel nodded. For a few moments she allowed herself to soak up her mother’s warmth. Maybe Mother didn’t understand. Maybe she never would, but she was still ‘Mother’. The woman who had rocked her to sleep after a nightmare. The woman who had soothed her as the healer set her broken arm when she’d fallen out of the arpril tree chasing her brothers in the orchard. The woman who had held her hand while they pierced her ears at her coming-in celebration.

After a few minutes Rachel stepped back. It was time to let go.

“Thank you, Mother.”

“You’re welcome, child.”

“Mother, I…I need to say I’m sorry. To the others. I’ve been…tense, but it was no reason to take it out on them.”

Mother patted her hand gently. “Oh, my beautiful girl. Don’t fret. It’s perfectly natural for you to be feeling a little stressed, honey. I’ll go find where those kinswomen of ours have got off to and bring them right back.”

“Would you find my fathers and brothers as well? I’d like to see them too before…well, you know.”

“Of course, dear. I probably should track down your fathers and brothers anyway. See if they’ve spotted your bond-mates yet. Make sure they haven’t all accidentally fallen into a tavern somewhere. You just relax. I’ll be right back.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

Rachel waited just long enough for her mother to close the door and walk down the corridor then she spun around, grabbed the satchel she’d managed to keep with a few bare essentials and hurried for the door. She’d said her goodbyes, now it was time to go. But she’d be doing it her way.

Devlynn cursed fluently in several standard intergalactic languages as he stomped his way back towards docking bay forty-two. When that didn’t make him feel any better he switched to a few, far more obscure dialects. But it didn’t make any difference. He desperately needed to hit something, and right now the port manager was looking mighty tempting.

Barek, you evil fucking annelid.
Remembering the smug look on the little Thebian’s face as he screwed them into the ground made Devlynn’s head hurt—the pent-up rage throbbing in his temples.

Fuck! Arek was going to be pissed. Maybe even pissed enough to start talking about selling
The Wyvern
again.

Devlynn slowed to a stop and ran his hand back through his short, spiky brown hair. What the hell was he going to tell Arek? Worse than worrying how they could keep going in a ship held together with conduit banding and Flexisteel cement, or wondering where on Rylos they were going to find the credits for next month’s ration packs, Devlynn’s gut churned just thinking about having to report back to Arek.

To those who didn’t know better, Arek could pass for perfectly fine. In fact, physically he was six-foot-eight and built like a dream. Literally. Devlynn often dreamed about his captain and best friend. And not in the “Hey, buddy, let’s check out the local tavern and have a few beers” kind of way. But beneath the thin veneer of ‘kiss-my-ass’ attitude and masculine perfection, Devlynn knew differently. Cracks were appearing—cracks that threatened to open up and swallow Arek whole.

Every day, he was getting more and more moody. More and more uptight. The fine lines of strain around his mouth and eyes were deepening. The haunted look that clouded his friend’s eyes sometimes when he thought no one was looking took longer and longer to fade each time. The laughing, devil-may-care bad-ass that squeezed every last drop out of life, the man Devlynn had long ago admitted he loved—if only to himself—was a shadowy memory.

He was losing Arek. Day-by-day, the Arek he knew was slipping away to be replaced by a hard, brittle shell of the man he used to be.

Danni’s death a little over nine months ago had changed him. Had changed everything, really. Once Arek would have simply brushed himself off and given the universe the big ‘screw-you’. Now…well, now he wasn’t sure what Arek’s reaction might be to the latest pile of Mar droppings that had been dumped at their hatch. Devlynn worried each time they came up against another hitch that Arek would implode—like a once brilliant star collapsing down into a gaping black hole.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have a choice but to share the latest bad news with his friend. Arek was his captain. Always had been, always would be. Withholding information just wasn’t an option.

Relieved of choice, if not his concern, Devlynn continued on—hurrying back past the looming hulls of the docked space transports towards
The Wyvern.
Rounding the huge, snub-nosed bow of a particularly large freighter, he saw Arek straighten up from a stack of cargo pods he’d been leaning against while he waited.

Devlynn’s pace faltered for a second before he caught himself and kept going as if nothing was amiss. Gods, the man was beautiful. His pulse kicked up a notch just watching the delicious slide of bronzed skin over thick muscles. So lickable. So completely never going to happen.

Piercing blue eyes pinned him with an intensity that did funny things to Devlynn’s insides. Wavy golden-brown hair pulled back in a simple synth-leather thong begged him to free it and run his fingers through the silky shoulder-length strands. Tight pants and an even tighter ass demanded his worshipping fingers. Damn, the man was fine with a capital fuck me.

“So what’s the verdict?” Arek called out as Devlynn got close enough to hear over the discordant mayhem of the busy spaceport.

Devlynn mentally slapped himself upside the head and tried to find some control. Now was so not the time to be thinking about how hot his Captain was.

“I tried, but he said late is late. Five hours or five days, we don’t get the bonus because we were outside the specified time.”

“Son of a—” Arek’s fingers curled up into his palm to form fists and his jaw clenched. “It was a fucking solar storm. The whole sodding dock was shut down. No one could have got those supplies through.”

“He didn’t care. Just pointed out the contract details on his data pad and told me to take what was on offer or put in an official petition and wait for the Floating Courts to swing past next month with their decision.”

“Asshole! We nearly killed ourselves getting those meds through.”

Devlynn nodded. He didn’t add his own fury at the situation. It would only prolong the moment—which wasn’t going to make any difference and wouldn’t do Arek any good in Devlynn’s opinion.

“So what’s he got for us to take out?”

“The only haul he’s got for us is solgram bails headed for the beef farms on Nareen.”

“But that’s halfway across the fucking sector!”

“Yeah. And it’s not a full payload either.”

“Ah, shit!” Arek turned and paced away a few steps before coming back, hands on hips and looking like he was barely holding on to his temper. “Is there any chance we can pick something up along the way?”

“Afraid not. The run’s only going to pay ten thousand creds but has to be there in twenty-eight standard days or we forfeit half our carriage fee.”

And the way
The Wyvern
was running at the moment, especially after their altercation with the solar storm, they’d need every one of those days to get to the drop off. They wouldn’t have time to try and pick up cargo to run along the way. And Barek knew it.

“Fuck!” Arek spun around and kicked viciously at the cargo pods behind him. Devlynn winched. Although Arek didn’t seem to feel it, he’d bet their last credit chip Arek would be limping tomorrow.

“Barek knows he’s got us over a barrel. Most everyone’s desperate for work right now after last year’s crop failures. He’s screwing everyone down, not just us.”

“Bastard.”

“Apparently he prefers ‘enterprising businessman’.”

“Same difference.” Arek let out a growl of frustration. Devlynn was relieved to see him start pacing again rather than kicking out at the cargo pods. “Gods damn it!”

“Yeah.” Devlynn forced a dry laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “Tell me again why it’s such a good thing to work hard and live the simple life?”

“Fucked if I know. Guess maybe ‘cause we’re still alive.”

Devlynn clenched his jaw—knowing Arek was thinking of Danni again.

Ah, shit!

“Arek—”

“Fuck! Sorry. That was a dick of a thing to say.” Arek sighed—sounding hollow and empty, like the words echoed out of him without touching on the way out—as he rubbed at his brow.

Devlynn held his breath, not sure what to say—not wanting to make things any worse than they already were.

“Come on, let’s just get loaded and get on with it,” Arek finally barked, spinning around and heading towards
The Wyvern’s
loading ramp without looking back at Devlynn.

Shit, fuck and damn! He hated this. He really did. It was no way to live. Scraping and begging for meagre handouts in backwater dives. Watching Arek get further and further away every day. Waiting for the man to finally crack.

He’d never regretted following Arek when he quit the Fennrus Group. They were some of the meanest sons of bitches in the Morn sector, and that was saying something. Losing Danni had nearly broken Arek—Danni the little brother who followed Arek everywhere, until he went and got himself killed trying to prove himself on a run and there weren’t enough pieces to fill an empty phaser-cell. But seeing Arek like this, shut down and bitter, was killing Devlynn.

He just felt so damn useless. It was like they were trapped, plodding through each day but not actually getting anywhere. Not actually alive. Sure, if the Fennrus group ever caught up to them they wouldn’t be alive for long, but there had to be something better than this.

Devlynn felt the nearly overwhelming urge to reach out to Arek. To do something. Anything. But he wasn’t sure what. He just had no idea what the man needed. He desperately wanted to make it better, but he didn’t know where to start. Devlynn counted himself a reasonably good warrior, a fair ex-pirate and an occasional holocard-sharp. But none of those skills were particularly helpful right now.

And so he found himself mutely following in Arek’s wake. Slightly lost, pretty clueless and floundering badly. Something had to give soon. They just couldn’t go on like this. Surely the universe owed them a break soon.

Rachel wiggled a little in the tight confines of the overhead storage locker. It was cramped and uncomfortable—not to mention she’d nearly broken her neck getting into it—but somehow she felt more light and free right now than she could ever remember in her life. Running away had definitely been the right decision. Although the thought of being a quitter still rankled. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been left with a lot of choices.

So she’d picked the most obscure transport she could find and stowed away—hoping there was less chance of someone thinking to look for her on the scruffy little freighter. It certainly made more sense than using one of the regular passenger transports. And the ship had been docked close to the waiting room. Trussed up in a blood red bonding dress didn’t exactly allow her to be inconspicuous, and there’d been no time to change. So finding the ship had been a gods-send.

After sneaking aboard, she’d found the most obscure, disused spot she could find, settled in and prayed for the best. And it seemed to have worked. It had been over an hour since she had felt the force of the thrusters lifting her away from Thebia . Having huddled, tense and silent for so long, worried that at any moment she might be discovered and sent back to be bonded to strangers, she was at last willing to let herself feel a moment of triumph.

She’d done it. The feel of the ship blasting off, the push of the engines setting her free, had been fantastic. She felt on top of the universe. Except for one tiny little flaw in her otherwise perfect plan. She was starving. Sure, she’d carefully scrimped and saved and brought her modest credit chip with her. While it wasn’t much, she was pretty confident it would see her through until she could pick up work further down the line. But that didn’t exactly help her right now. There was nowhere to use said credit chip to get food. Suddenly, carefully packing to travel light didn’t seem like such a good idea. Maybe a few energy bars would have been smart. Her stomach was telling her in no uncertain terms it was dinnertime.

Rachel felt a sudden pang of loss to go with her growing hunger. She wondered what her mother and sisters and the other kinswomen were doing right now. Were they all sitting down to a meal? Were they worried? Frantically searching for her? She hoped they’d found the data note she’d left by now. She didn’t want them worrying. While they didn’t understand her, she still loved them. And in their own way—infuriating as it was—she knew they loved her.

If only it didn’t have to be like this. Knowing she’d never see them again was—

Rachel’s stomach growled and cramped painfully again. Right. Time to stop being maudlin and do something constructive. She didn’t like stealing. It wasn’t at all the way she’d been brought up or planned to live her life. But desperate times sometimes drove people to unfortunate lengths. If anyone appreciated that, she did. She was sure she could find some way of quietly paying back her unwitting benefactors…somehow.