Salvaged Destiny (10 page)

“Now. I wasn’t always.” Del sucked in a breath and
compressed her lips into a firm line.

“What happened?”

Del sighed and shifted, then sat up, which made Lazlo wish
he hadn’t asked anything so she would have stayed lying next to him for a
little longer. And wasn’t that entirely pathetic?

“My pa was hurt out here in this section. A couple of
kilometers from here when he fell. I was watching from the ground. He broke his
femur and ankle.”

That explained her solitary trips and her reluctance to take
on this job. Lazlo felt sympathy for the Browens. By outward appearances like
the outdated and repaired equipment and Del’s meager lunches, Lazlo had
realized her family was just getting by. It must have been hard on all of them
when Nige Browen was injured and out of commission.

“How did you get him back?” The terrain in this area was so
impassible. Lazlo couldn’t imagine how a smallish person like Del had managed
it.

“I braced his injuries, made a sled and started pulling.” Del
stood and held out a hand to help him up. Her fingers were thin and he was
impressed she had managed to save her father. “But the injuries were bad enough
that he couldn’t come back out here anymore, so I’m on my own now with the
prospecting. It’s mostly all right, but I have to stay safe, not take risks.”

“I see,” Lazlo agreed, not wanting to say more. He felt bad
enough bringing up such a sensitive topic.
Change the conversation
. “Where
should we go for dinner tonight?”

Expression shifting from melancholy to confused, Del frowned
at him. “Are you joking? You want to go out again?”

“Yes, again.” Lazlo decided to tease her. “I’m beginning to
think you don’t want to be seen with me.”

Del shook her head and closed her eyes. “No, that’s not true.
You’re quite, quite…”

“Quite what?” Lazlo continued pressing her. Del scrunched up
her face as if she were in pain, her eyes squinted and her pretty mouth clamped
tight. Why was this so hard for her?

“Presentable, which I am not. I’m tired and dirty.”

“I am too, but we’ll feel better after a shower and some
clean clothes.”

“Right, but something quick, maybe that place that serves
the soup—”

“I know that place, over in the Bow Section. It’s good, but
I was thinking that we could get some takeout after we drop off our things at
technical to get them recalibrated.”

Lazlo planned the remainder of the day. His priorities, in
chronological order, were to safely descend the cliff and return to the cart,
check their scanners when they returned to port, clean up, eat and sleep. He
imagined that Del’s were the same. The fact that he’d get to do most of them
with her was an added bonus.

Millicent “Trixie” Rupti grabbed the department scanners
with a soft cry and immediately placed them under a fume hood within seconds of
Del and Lazlo entering the room. Closing the scuffed lexan cover, the
technician activated suction and watched as the vacuum pulled away all the dust
and spores coating the devices.

Del wasn’t sure where to stand in the cramped tech lab of
the security station. She had enough dirt on her clothes to ruin anything she
might brush up against. Lazlo had cheerfully claimed that their attire didn’t
matter and that he wanted to catch Trixie on her shift so she could check their
equipment.

The tech officer turned back to them and smiled hugely at
Lazlo, looking as if she’d been waiting for him to show up and rescue her from
a gang of pirates. Trixie was pretty and clean. Del sighed and tried not to
compare herself to her.

“Trixie, this is Del Browen,” Lazlo introduced them and Del
held out her hand, but withdrew it when she saw how dirty it was. Trixie didn’t
notice—she was too busy staring at Lazlo, who was appealing in a rakish way
with his dusty boots, odd bits of gear hanging from a low-slung belt and
shirtsleeves rolled up. He could have easily stood in for the hero of an action
entertainment.

“Where have you been, Lieutenant Casta? I haven’t seen you
around the station in three days.” Trixie reached for some leads and a small
distributor on a workbench crowded with tools and cracked-open electronic devices.

“Del and I have been out exploring. The major wanted me to
run some tests on these things.” Lazlo leaned back against the wall and crossed
his arms. He seemed to have some extra muscles in his forearms. Del gave Lazlo
a fierce look to warn him not to say more and he shrugged at her, trying to
look innocent.

“In the Outlands? No wonder the scanners are a wreck!” Trixie
said while popping open the fume hood and pulling the now-clean handhelds out
to her cluttered workbench. “Tell me how they performed while I realign them.” She
attached the leads and began to work through some sort of cycle. Del couldn’t
see much and was content to be quiet next to Lazlo and wait.

“They worked well at first, but then we lost the signal. Del
thought we might have had another pole reversal,” Lazlo offered as he rolled
his shoulders and brushed an arm against Del.

Trixie peered at her closely and nodded. “We did, at roughly
fourteen hundred hours. I’ve been debugging all afternoon.”

“Thanks for taking our stuff in,” Lazlo said as Trixie shook
her head, her curly hair bobbing.

“Our commander said to provide whatever you need, whenever
you need it.” Trixie smiled at Lazlo again. “And you know I would do any favor
you asked, Lieutenant.”

Yes, Trixie was flirting hard with Lazlo, and Del felt like
poking him in his ticklish ribs. The tech officer was attractive in a quirky
way. Her uniform was a bit disheveled under her smock and her dark-brown hair
was barely restrained in a clip, but her skin was pretty and she was obviously
intelligent. They would make a nice-looking couple.

“Would you like me to synch your datpad too? I can do yours
as well, Citizen Browen,” Trixie offered politely and they handed over their
personal devices with thanks. The tech quickly docked Lazlo’s on a long bar
filled with other small pieces of equipment, all of them blinking green, yellow
and blue in sleepy rhythms.

“I haven’t seen one this old in years!” Trixie exclaimed as
she looked over Del’s recycled datpad.

Lazlo shifted next to her and Del tried to suppress her
embarrassment as she held out her hand to take the datpad back. “If you can’t
synch it, that’s fine. I’ll do it tonight when I get home.”

“Of course I can synch it! I just need to find the right
adapter,” Trixie promised, turning to dig around in a drawer, oblivious to Del’s
discomfort. She hated it when people noticed her family’s borderline poverty. Lazlo
looked over at her and she stared at the floor rather than look back.

“Thanks for giving Trixie a challenge, Del. She’s so good at
this stuff that she lords it over the rest of us.”

“Oh Lieutenant Casta, I’m not that good,” Trixie shot back
after decisively plugging in Del’s device, then smiling at Lazlo again,
obviously pleased by his compliment.

“You are. How are you doing on upgrading those new drones?”

“Terribly bad. I still can’t get them to track with surface
features and with the few operational satellites we have, they get lost and
hover aimlessly waiting for signals. I’ve misplaced one this week and crashed
another but found most of the parts. I think I can repair it. We could go out
sometime to try one farther from the port, since you know where to go out
there.” Trixie gestured at a fragile-looking cylinder on another workbench and
Del stepped over to take a look. She was uninterested in interrupting Trixie’s
play for Lazlo. The woman looked as if she hadn’t been outside in a few years,
so Lazlo would have his hands full managing her out on the cliffs.

The drone looked like a folded fish—slim solar blades and a
tapered body colored bright orange and green. One of the stabilizers had
sheared away from the body and the other two were crumpled like used paper. Del
wanted to touch it but held her hands behind her back instead, sure Trixie
would be mightily upset if she got any grime on the precious machine.

Lazlo was at her side, whispering, “Go ahead, I dare you.”

“You dare me what?” Del hissed back.

“Touch it,” Lazlo teased, his brown eyes bright as he
grinned at her. Del shook her head at how easy it would be to take his
statement the wrong way.

“No. Your friend Trixie would likely stun me if I got my
filthy fingers on it.” And that was true in another way as well.

“You aren’t that dirty,” Lazlo assured her.

Del shook her head and glanced over her shoulder at the tech
worker, distracted by some displays whizzing data on an enormous wall screen. “Dirty
enough.”

“What do you think?” Nudging her arm with his elbow, Lazlo
wiggled his eyebrows at her.

“About what?” Del wasn’t quite sure what they had been
talking about anymore because there were so many permutations of the word “dirty”
floating around in her head.

“What do you think about taking one of these out tomorrow
and messing around with it?” Lazlo stopped looking at her to stare at the drone
with an acquisitive gleam in his eye.

“We have a job already,” Del reminded him and nudged one of
his long-fingered hands away from the drone’s fin. Trixie might notice. Messing
around, indeed.

“Yes, but this would be fun. We could work on it when we
take a break,” Lazlo wheedled and leaned even closer to the drone, his nose
centimeters from it now. He was enthralled by the piece of machinery.

“I think your friend wants to go with you,” Del reminded
him, glancing back at the tech officer, who still seemed to be engrossed in her
electronic menagerie.

Lazlo shook his head. “Trixie out there? She’d be dehydrated
and disoriented in about ten minutes. No, we’re going to be there already. She
won’t mind.”

“Lazlo, she would mind quite a bit.”

The man looked perplexed and Del realized Lazlo had no idea
the tech officer was interested in him. How could a man that attractive not
have a better sense of women? Trixie spoke up and they spun around to face her.
Del felt guilty of something, but she wasn’t sure what.

“The scanners are set. For how long, I don’t know—this crazy
planet pops itself all the time.” Del liked how volatile Sayre was. It kept
things interesting.
From a geological perspective, that is.

Trixie handed the scanners back after she’d encased them in
some shrink wrap, then returned their datpads. “So, Lazlo, do you have plans
this evening? I’ve wanted to go to that new nodule on the Lower. I heard they
have some great audionooks. Really cozy.”

Lazlo nodded. “That sounds like fun. Del, do you want to
stop by there after dinner?”

Feeling on the spot, Del tried to smile at an oblivious
Lazlo and a suddenly unhappy Trixie. She had a feeling the tech officer wasn’t
going to offer to synch her datpad ever again. “We’ll see.”

“Trixie, Del and I can take one of these drones out tomorrow
and make some test runs,” Lazlo chattered, trying to convince the tech officer
to let him get his hands on one of the things. Looking heartbroken, Trixie
shrugged and agreed reluctantly, muttering about needing a receipt and
insisting Lazlo read all the operating instructions before trying anything. He
agreed to everything and cradled the plastic-encased drone in his arms like a
baby as she handed it over. Trixie looked at Del, taking in her worn boots,
loose and dusty clothes, and looked completely confused. Del was confused as
well.

“Don’t break it, Lazlo!” Trixie warned as they left the lab.
“Come back and tell me how it went. Please! I’ll be here all day tomorrow!”

Lazlo was excited as he and Del left security, waving
goodbye to some of his coworkers by lifting the gorgeous little drone as they
passed clusters of patrol officers and a few supervisors. He couldn’t wait to
send the flyer up into the air. Once they were out on the Boulevard, Del
stopped walking, little puffs of dust lifting from her clothes when she put her
hands on her hips, turning to frown at him.

“Lieutenant Casta, how could you?”

“How could I what and you’re supposed to call me Lazlo,
remember?” he reminded her, distracted by the drone and wondering how long it
would take for the two of them to reconvene for dinner. He wanted to spend a
lot of time this evening studying the pretty little thing.

“Oh I remember, I’m just not going to now. That poor woman. I’m
so mad I could spit,” Del huffed.

“Why are you mad? What poor woman?” He was confused. Del gave
him an impatient look and started walking again and he followed, careful not to
jostle the drone.

“Trixie is the poor woman.”

“What’s wrong with her?” The tech officer hadn’t looked
sick, but he could have missed some sign, since he’d been far too distracted by
the lovely robotics littering the workbenches in the lab.

“She was trying to ask you out and you completely ignored
her,” Del said over her shoulder as she continued to walk.

Lazlo shook his head. Trixie wasn’t like that. She lived in
the lab. Why was everyone pushing him at Trixie? First Detective Chin and now
Del. He doubted Trixie ever went anywhere other than her home. She wasn’t
someone he could imagine dancing with or flirting with or getting naked with. Unlike
Del Browen, who was beginning to figure prominently in his daydreams. “No she
wasn’t.”

“Yes she was. It was painful to see. Good night, Lieutenant
Casta.”

“So does this mean we aren’t going to have dinner together?”

“That’s correct.” She kept walking away from him, waving her
hand at him dismissively. “Tomorrow morning, same place, same time.”

Lazlo slowed and then stopped, watching her disappear in the
crowd. He’d really been looking forward to dinner.

* * * * *

“Still angry with me?”

Del didn’t reply to Lazlo’s question. She just drove the
cart a little faster and exhaled. He had been quiet that morning, carefully
stowing the drone in the back of the cart and taking a seat after handing her
some coffee. He’d also brought a small box of pastries as a peace offering. Del
wasn’t ready to be mollified yet, but one look at the lovely lemon éclairs was
making her mouth water and her irritation fade.

“I’m not angry with you,” Del admitted. “I just felt bad for
Trixie.”

Lazlo shifted in the seat next to her, or maybe he was
merely jounced around by the rough driving. “Why do you feel bad for her? She’s
fine.”

“She’s not fine. She likes you and I think it really hurt
her when you asked me to go to that audionook she was asking
you
to.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt her, Del.”

Shooting him a frustrated glance, Del decided she had made
her point. Of course Lazlo hadn’t meant to hurt Trixie. He just hadn’t noticed
what he was doing. “She’s just trying to find someone, as everyone is.”

“I don’t know about that.” Lazlo sounded doubtful and Del
shook her head as she concentrated on her driving. There were lots of loose
rocks along this stretch and she didn’t want to jounce the cart and spill her
coffee. Or, stars forbid, lose the éclairs.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?” Del stopped thinking about food and attended to
Lazlo’s question. He peered at her through the reflective lenses of his specs
and she wished she could see his eyes to determine if he was serious or trying
to tease her.

“Trying to find someone?” Lazlo sounded serious.

“I’m not the topic. Trixie Rupti likes you. That’s the topic,”
Del shot back, certain she absolutely did not want to discuss that sort of
thing with him. Ever.

“I’m not sure why that’s the topic,” Lazlo grumbled.

“Because I don’t like being used as camouflage,” Del
reminded him of her initial cause for offense in case it had slipped his mind.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you drag me along yesterday to divert her from you?”
There, she’d asked the question that had bothered her all evening. Del didn’t
want to think Lazlo would use her like that.

“No. I don’t think I did.” He shifted in his seat. “I’m not
that devious. Are you still angry?”

“No, not angry. Maybe peeved, but not angry,” Del admitted. Lazlo
really was getting uncomfortable over this. She had apparently discovered a
weakness in his niceness armor.

“I’m not going out to an audionook with Trixie to make you
happy,” he muttered.

“I don’t expect you to.” Del glanced over at him and he was
scowling, an expression she’d never seen on his usually affable face. Lazlo
adjusted his shades and hat.

“Could we drop this?” Lazlo folded his arms across his
chest, took a deep breath, shook his head and gave all sorts of body signals he
wanted the subject closed.