Destiny's Kingdom: Legend of the Chosen (14 page)

"Where's the cargo, Ryder?" Her voice was flat, serious. She didn't engage in small talk until the money was in her hand.

"One of your crew met me as I walked up with it," he said. "She said it had to be scanned before they loaded it on board. What's the problem, Clea? Don't you trust that what I say is in the crate is really what's in the crate?"

"I've no reason to trust you, Ryder. I don't even know you. Everything gets scanned before it goes on board. Still taking me for a novice, I see."

Ryder produced a clear glass disc, a credit piece in the amount of ten thousand chid. He held it before her face and looked at her, turning serious all at once.

"These aren't novice fees, Clea. And I expect absolute flawless performance in exchange for them." She stared past the credit piece, directly into his eyes, and said nothing. Finally, Ryder spoke again.
 

"Aren't you going to take the money, Clea?" he asked. She still didn't look at it, still focused on his eyes.

"When you hand it to me properly, and not just hang it in front of my face like some bait I have to grab for."

For a moment, he didn't move, then he lowered his hand to her waist and Clea reached out to take the disc, without losing her lock on Ryder's eyes. With the payment now in her hand she smiled wryly and looked away. "Have a little faith, Ryder," she said, looking at the credit piece, then stowing it in her hip pocket. "I've done a lot more dangerous runs than this one."

"I'm sure you have," he replied, leaning next to her against the turret. "You talked about Oracuu as though it were a pleasure resort." She had to fight down a big smile for that comment, and she focused on the deal so that she wouldn't give herself away.

"What about coordinates, Ryder? That and the liaison, if any, that I'm meeting once the delivery is done?"
 

"Right here, fair lady." He produced another disc, a much smaller one encased in a black paper sleeve.
 
She plucked the disc from his hand before he could anticipate her doing it. "I assume you have a data reader on your ship?" he asked.

"Of course I do," she replied, reaching into a deep pocket on her thigh, "I also have a portable one right here." With skilled precision, she dropped the disc into her reader, and looked at the information that came up on the miniature screen. She glanced up to Ryder, noting how his mouth pressed tightly together as though he were frustrated, and she pressed a couple of buttons on the keypad, nodding her head as though she understood what she read. Shutting the lid on the palm-sized device, she stowed it in a more accessible pocket, and tripped the release button as she did, catching the disc as it popped into her hand, and noticing that Ryder had relaxed again. She swayed her body away from the turret, walking a few steps in front of her associate.
 

"Well, Ryder, I'll send you message when the job's complete. Should be less than a day before it's done, and I'm back here safe and sound."
 

"I look forward to that, Clea. And the successful delivery of my bounty."

He looked down at her as she circled him, and was reminded of how she moved when they'd walked through the marketplace, the seductive way she'd weaved around him and looked up at him with such coy confidence. He stood away from the turret and she laughed, for what seemed like no particular reason.

"Good day, Ryder. I'll speak with you sometime before next 'morrow." Her hand brushed against his hip as she walked away from him and toward her ship, which was docked just fifty or so paces away, and she looked back over her shoulder and smiled. Even in the charcoal gray coveralls, even with her hair twisted into a simple braid, she still had the same sashaying walk, and still maintained the teasing manner that had first caught his attention when he'd searched her out on Seventh Day. Ryder shook himself away from his visual captor, and walked away from the area of the ship. He would soon see if she was as good in her profession as she was with her words.

By noon Clea had just finished up the final diagnostic on her ship and was giving the hull a quick visual inspection when she thought she heard someone calling her name. Before she had time to analyze the voice, she had looked up and at that instant she realized it was too late. She had already made eye contact with Quade.
 

Clea looked away. He was just at the entrance of the hangar, had been frantically calling out to her and waving his arms when she'd caught sight of him. A throng of people and at least a hundred paces stood between him and where she stood next to her ship. She flipped her diagnostic reader off, turned and scaled the ramp to the ship in two leaps and swung around the inside support on the hatch. She didn't look up this time when she heard the frantic call of Quade's voice coming closer, but instead secured the entry and sealed the hatch behind her. Taking a deep breath, she walked the short corridor that led to the cockpit. Her crew was already in place.

"Ready?" she asked casually as she slid into the pilot's chair.

"At your word Clea," Gannet held down a button and slid a bar across the control panel. "Clearance to depart just came through. "

She stared straight ahead toward the bay doors that led to the sky, to open space, didn't avert her eyes as she spoke. "Well then," she said, "let's go."

Ryder Deluka was having trouble getting a lock on his own tracking signal. He'd watched from a distance, waited until Duplicity had maneuvered through the bay doors of the hangar and disappeared into the sky. But still, for some reason, the signal was offering a reaction of feedback, a sign that his target was still too close. A long-range sensor trap the likes of the one he was using would read several systems away, should work with no problem at the distance Clea's ship certainly was by this time. But it would not work close-range, which was what the signal was indicating right now. The ship was surely through the atmosphere after this much time, and that was plenty far away for the signal to read. In the past it usually took no longer than his losing visual contact with a craft before the beacon began to transmit precise and clear. Ryder scowled at the tiny display that sat in the palm of his hand, the instrument that should follow the course of the bugged info disk he'd given to Clea. He was a shrewd trafficker, hadn't gotten to the place he was in his profession letting new contracts take his cargo without keeping close tabs on exactly where they went. He was suspicious of everyone, and had no tolerance for a smuggler who may make a side trip to partition some of his merchandise for a sale of their own. Especially since he'd paid up front, he wasn't about to let a cocky young girl like Clea Colletta take off with his goods without careful monitoring, no matter how flawless her reputation was. He hailed the receptor again, and again came the static feedback. Frustrated, Ryder maneuvered the tiny diagnostic wand about the controls on the front of the mechanism, going into the brain of the device. He'd watched Clea tuck her portable reader into her pocket with the signal-bugged disk still inside, had even lingered long enough to see her stow the instrument on her ship. He knew she wouldn't have been careless with a piece of equipment as expensive as that type of portable reader, couldn't possibly have forgotten it or dropped it by accident…

Once inside the inner workings of the tracking device, Ryder could override the long-range scanners and pinpoint the exact location of the disk whose signal on which he was unable to lock. A tiny display map of the surrounding area came up on the readout, showed the position of the disk to be still within the hangar. Impossible! He'd seen her put it on her ship! Ryder further honed in on the signal, and saw that it was coming from the vicinity in which he stood, just within the hangar's support beams along the public entry hatch. And suddenly, a sense memory jogged inside his mind. He saw Clea as she'd stood next to him not an hour ago, saw her sway away from the turret on which she leaned, turning and laughing as she circled around him. And he reached into his hip pocket, the same side that her hand had brushed against so teasingly as she sashayed by him.

Ryder looked up to the sky, his eyes filled with rage as he found his pocket not empty, but occupied by a thin glass sphere, the very bugged disk that he'd given to Clea. Ten thousand chid! he thought to himself, and a bounty of rare jewels! Now that bounty was truly entrusted to someone he barely knew, aside from the reputation that preceded her. How many times had he used this technique with flawless success, had he tracked his smuggling contracts in their every move? Countless times without fail. Without fail until now. Reluctantly, he shook his head and reluctantly, he chuckled. Ten thousand chid, he thought to himself, squeezing the remote disk that had ended up back in his own pocket after all by a simple slight of Clea's hand. The flat circle snapped in half inside Ryder's palm, continued to crush from the angry pressure of his fist. His cargo lost or delivered, Clea Colletta had outsmarted him in his own devices proving, if nothing else, that she certainly was no novice.

Clea stared hard at the ship's sensor display as it continued to show another vessel on their same heading. It was a good half-hour's travel time in open space before they would reach the first nexus point in their journey to Tal-Min Vista, but she didn't like the feeling she was getting from the ship that followed just far enough behind to stay out of visual range. Every time the panel flashed showing the evidence of the phantom ship, her anxiety grew.

"I don't like it either," Gannet said. Clea didn't take her eyes off the flashing light. She could have guessed that Gannet would have noticed it as well, though he hadn't said anything until just now. "I especially don't like how they're staying just far enough out of range that we can't see who they are. Do you think it's someone from Ryder's camp?"

"No." There was no hesitation in Clea's voice as she spoke quietly to her most trusted crewmember. "No. Ryder would never be this obvious. Gannet, come about. Turn the ship around and head directly toward him just until we're close enough to get a look."

Duplicity was moving off course before her last sentence was finished. Clea tore her gaze away from the flashing display to look over her shoulder and reached to slide a lever that would shut the hatch to the cockpit. Her remaining two crewmembers were still in the cargo hold, downloading the landing and contact information that Clea had copied before she discarded the bugged disc that Ryder had tried to plant on her. It was better that they were back there and away from the goings-on of the cockpit, just in case… just in case.”

"Coming through now, Clea." Gannet's voice was steady. She was too anxious to look at the readout, instead focused on the screen where the visual would come through only a few seconds behind the sensor scan. "Bethan courier cruiser. Sovereign class. That's interesting-"

"Quade!" She hissed his name under her breath and flung herself angrily back in her chair. "Damnit! Damn him!"

At that second a hailing tone sounded on the com. Clea dove back to the board and received the hail, talking over whatever he may have said.