Athena's Ashes (24 page)

She chuckled and shook her head. “Look at that. Viktis the pirate’s gone and fallen in love finally. The women of the galaxy will weep.”

His grin was wicked as he got to his feet. “Have you ever known me to settle down with one woman?”

“Why yes, as a matter of fact.” She followed him through the apartment. “I seem to remember a time when it was just me and you. You’re not so tough, Viktis. I know you’ve been in love before.”

He opened the door and reset the security system. “And then I tried to kill you. That’s usually how all my relationships end.”

“Good point,” she said with a laugh. “Let’s hope Keva’s a better shot than you are.” She grabbed her bag off the threadbare couch. “Can we stop by my dropbox on the way to the ship? Kara’s supposed to get me some intel on Samil.”

“Of course.
Fortune’s Risk
is waiting on the other side of the station. Luckily, I haven’t heard a peep about MYTH searching for you, but we’d still better be careful.” He paused and rubbed his chin. “Though I wouldn’t mind knocking Captain Finn on his ass just once.”

Renna followed him from the apartment. “Wait in line, pirate. I get first shot at him.”

Viktis quickly locked the door, setting the security cameras before they headed toward the apartment complex exit.

Renna paused at the door, peering up and down the bustling street. There were way too many places someone could hide.

“Hold on, let me run a scan.” She ordered her implant to search for MYTH soldiers, but it returned negative contacts.

They made it to the other end of the district without anyone stopping them, and Renna’s pulse finally slowed as they waited for their elevator to arrive. “Are you finally going to tell me about the story behind getting this ship?” she asked, slanting a glance at Viktis.

He smirked. “You heard Finn and I took down mob queen Kitty Cordoza last week? As part of that sting, I just happened to…acquire the
Fortune’s Risk
from Kitty, along with a few hundred-thousand credits. She won’t need either of them where she’s going, and I needed a new ship. Seemed like the perfect solution.”

“So you’re saying the
Fortune’s Risk
is your reward for doing a good deed?” Since when had Viktis turned altruistic?

“You could say that.” Viktis sighed lovingly. “She’s the prettiest little thing you’ve ever seen. I’ve got her stored over with the Ortan port authority.”

Renna quirked an eyebrow at him. That was one of the better districts on the station. A lot of diplomats stored their vehicles there, preferring quick access to the station rather than the red tape of the government landing hub. That exclusivity didn’t come cheap.

The elevator’s arrival interrupted Viktis, and they both stepped into it. Renna entered the code for Kara’s district where the dropbox was located, then turned back to the pirate. “Have you ever gotten a ship through normal channels?”

“Have you?”

Renna held up her hands. “Fair enough. No more questions.”

The elevator came to a stop, and the pair stepped into a quiet, residential district. She started another scan for MYTH soldiers, but agony sliced through her brain instead.

Air whooshed from her lungs at the red-hot fire shooting through her nerves.
Gods, the pain
. Renna’s knees buckled, and she dropped to the floor. The whole station rocked and spun around her as her implant went crazy.

Images burst and faded in her mind—pictures of star charts, images of the tenements where she’d grown up, her first ship. They swirled like abstract art, combining and recombining into different shapes and images. Her tenuous grip on the connection with the hub slipped. She could feel it start to unravel, and she grasped at it, trying to slip back into her hiding place. To cut off communications.

But the harder she struggled, the faster her connection with the station disintegrated. A second later, she felt the communication line she’d turned off earlier reconnect with the
Athena
.

Finn’s voice filled her ears. “Renna! Where the hell are you?” he demanded. “Get back to the
Athena
right now!”

“Screw you.” Renna shook her head, frantically trying to switch off the line. “Don’t come after me, Finn. I don’t want to hurt you, but I won’t let you take me in.”

“I don’t have a choice, Renna. It’s an order. Come back before we both do something we’ll regret.” His voice sounded cold, like a stranger’s, and an ache started at the back of her throat. How quickly he’d given up on her. Again.

“I’ve already done plenty of things I regret. I’m talking to one of them right now. But you know what? I have only one more thing to say to you. Fuck you for choosing them over me, and fuck you for believing I’d betray you.” She pressed frantically at the comm button below her ear, hoping to turn it off manually, but the line only crackled.

Viktis crouched beside her on the floor. “What’s going on?”

Renna shook her head as Finn’s voice filled her ears again.

“I don’t know why you keep denying it. We all watched you do it. I can’t believe I fell for your lies again.” Disgust filled his voice, sending a dagger through her heart. That hurt worse than her implant’s malfunction, but she forced herself to brush it off.

“Screw you, asshole,” she said, slamming her head back on the floor. Her comm let out a burst of static as pain exploded through her.

And then everything was blessedly silent.

“What the hell happened?” Viktis asked, studying her worriedly. “Are you all right?”

Renna blinked up at him, trying not to moan as stars sparked in her vision. “Something went haywire. My implant let Finn’s comm through. We need to get the hell off this station.”

“Shit.” He took Renna’s hand and helped her to her feet. “Can they use the implant to track you?”

She nodded. “I lost my firewall in the hub. Gheewala will be able to sense my frequency now. We’re out of time.” Renna ignored the vertigo that sent her stumbling down the corridor and headed toward Kara’s dropbox in the middle of the district.

The small metal mailbox was virtually indistinguishable in the bank of other mailboxes, but Renna found it easily. She input the password for the keypad, and the door slid back.

A small holodisk and packet of information lay inside, and Renna quickly tucked them into her bag. She hoped there was something there that would lead them to Samil, or this escape plan would be dead before they even left the station.

“This is it. Now let’s get out of here,” she said. Viktis slipped an arm around her to help her walk.

They reached the pressure door that led to next district, and she shrugged him off. The warehouse area wasn’t known for its friendliness, and if the residents sensed weakness, they’d be on her in a second, taking her for an easy mark. She ignored the throbbing in her head and shifted her bag on her shoulder to pull it closer.

Viktis’s gaze never stopped moving while they walked, searching the alleys that led off the main corridor. Unwary people who came to this area often found themselves on the back of a cargo ship, headed for slave territories.

He nodded toward a group of ragged kids gathered in front of one of the warehouse doors. “Watch yourself,” he said.

Renna made eye contact with one of the kids, a girl of about fifteen with messy blonde hair and a firebird tattoo on her neck. She was part of the Cordoza gang. A recent member if the redness around the tattoo was any indication.

The girl met Renna’s steady gaze with a nod and said something to the boy next to her. All four pairs of eyes watched Viktis and Renna as they passed, but none of them moved to harass them.

Smart kids.

She glanced back at the girl. Maybe someday she could help girls like that—or, at least, help them get by. Someone sticking up for her when she’d arrived on station would have saved her life more than once.

“Through here.” Viktis pointed to an access door hidden in one of the wall panels. “This should be a shortcut through the center of the station. Save us some time.”

Renna followed him down the narrow corridor. Dim helo bulbs gave off barely enough light to see a few feet ahead, and she walked with one hand on her blaster. The access corridors were usually locked, but there were always ways to get in. And plenty of black market deals went down there.

Viktis ran down a flight of steps and pushed open the door at the bottom onto a lower level.

“Where the hell are we?” she asked. The smooth white walls and tile floors made it look like a medical wing—or worse yet, Navang’s facility. She fought back a shudder.

“A maintenance level between districts. Shouldn’t be anyone around, and I happen to have the keycard to the elevator that will take us directly to the Ortan port authority.”

“Just so happens, huh? Did you win that in a card game, too?”

“I’ll never tell,” he said with a sly grin.

The pair rounded the corner, and Renna froze dead in her tracks.

Finn and Lieutenant Blake stood at the other end of the hallway. The bright light shone on Finn’s dark hair, and even from where they stood, she could see the anger blazing in his blue eyes.

Finn aimed his blaster at her. “We’re taking you in, Renna. I have my orders.”

“Like hell you are.” She clutched her own blaster but didn’t pull it from the holster yet. That was a step she could never undo.

“Hands up.” He moved toward them, gun pointed directly at Renna’s breaking heart.

She should have known better. She should have never believed a word he’d said. But part of her couldn’t let it go. “You lied to me, Finn. You said you trusted me, that you’d fight with me against MYTH as long as we needed to. What happened to us trying to figure out what we had? What happened to wanting to be with me?”

He slowed, but didn’t lower his gun. “I could ask you the same thing. You betrayed me. Again. After promising you wouldn’t. I should have known you could never really be reformed.” His voice shook, and he cleared his throat. “We’re going to bring you in and you’re going to fix this. MYTH doesn’t tolerate traitors, and neither do I.”

“The only traitor here is Samil,” she said, letting her fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around her blaster. He’d given her no choice. A shot in the leg should stop him long enough for her to get away. “Samil is the one you should be going after, not me,” she argued. “Think about it, Captain. Why would I lie all this time? What’s in it for me? It makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” he retorted. “Especially if you’ve been working with Samil for months. It explains how you knew where Myka was, how you escaped Navang’s facility, how you were able to control the
Athena
. This has all been one brilliant set-up.”

“You’re right, it has. I just wish I was the one who’d thought of it. I’d give anything to wipe that smug sneer off your lips, you short-sighted asshole.” Anger surged through her, and her vision flashed red as her implant kicked on and off, the heads-up display flickering through Finn’s vitals and stats. He was as upset as she was, based on how fast his pulse was racing.

Beside her, Viktis muttered to her under his breath. “Keep it together, Renna. I have a plan to get us out of this,” he said softly.

“You and me both.” But she took a deep breath and brought herself under control. She ordered the implant off, and shockingly it obeyed. Maybe she was finally getting the hang of this thing.

Finn motioned again with his gun. “Hands up, please. Blake, cuff her. But be careful.”

The lieutenant frowned at Renna, then glanced back at Finn. “You sure about this? I still think there’s something we’re missing here.”

Renna smiled at Blake. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, handsome, but you’re not going to change his mind. We’ve got a history, and for some reason he can’t see past that. Wish it had been different.”

Blake shook his head. “But then I’d never have met you. We’ll figure this out, Renna. Just let us take you in and clear it all up.”

“Sorry, but that’s not going to happen.” As Blake closed in, Renna dropped her hands and struck out with her foot. She swiped Blake’s legs from beneath him, then side-stepped his attempt to grab her.

Beside her, Viktis launched himself directly at Finn’s gun hand. His long amber fingers closed around Finn’s wrist, twisting it back. The two men grunted as they struggled for control.

Renna had only a split second before Blake attacked again, but thanks to her earlier sparring with him, she knew exactly where his weaknesses were. And she had no problem using them against him now.

As the lieutenant tried to jump to his feet, she struck again, her boot connecting firmly with his gut. Blake hissed, going down again, and this time he didn’t get up. Renna didn’t wait to see if he was okay. Instead she turned back to Finn and Viktis.

The two men were locked together, struggling over Finn’s gun. Viktis seemed to have the worst of it. Sweat poured down his face, and he gasped for breath as Finn twisted his body, seeming to gather his strength.

Shit. She recognized the move from Bumani, the fighting style he’d taught her so long ago. It was up to her now, and she’d only have one shot at bringing Finn down before he struck. Renna tensed her own body as she readied herself to attack. She’d have to be perfect or Viktis would be directly in the line of fire.

As Finn’s leg muscles bunched, she struck out, her hand connecting with the soft flesh of his side. Exactly where his kidney was. Three quick strikes and he’d dropped to the ground, the gun clattering across the floor. He curled into the fetal position with a moan, and Renna grabbed Viktis’s arm.

“Run!”

Still panting from his fight, Viktis sprinted down the corridor, Renna following close behind. “Through here,” he gasped.

He jammed a fist against the elevator call button, and seconds later it arrived. They rushed inside as shouting filled the hall.

Finn was calling for back up.

TWENTY-EIGHT