Samhain Publishing

If you can’t take the heat, get out of the cockpit…

Beyond Meridian by C.C. Bridges
When Raine took Karl on his crew, he didn’t sign up for battling privateers, the United Planetary Alliance—and his body’s response to the naïve kid.

Karl’s covert mission is finally within reach. Unfortunately, so is Raine, who’s erotic poetry in motion. But Karl can’t trust him with secrets that could get them both killed.

Crimson by Ethan X. Thomas
Ben will do anything to bring down a drug czar—anything but kneel. Then an ambush wipes out his squad and threatens the life of a partner he never realized he cared about, much less loved.

Ben always looked past Adam’s blue skin, yet suddenly Ben seems determined to get rid of him. But Adam won’t be scared off. He has his own agenda on this mission, and he’ll achieve it even if it means acting as Ben’s Master…

Moonlust by Kallysten
Stealing chromore from a deserted moon gets complicated when Kar and his two-man crew discover too late there’s a mating season in progress—and the pheromones plunge all three of them into lust. Blindsided by erotic visions of his crewmembers, things suddenly get much harder for Kar than expected…

Copyright © 2010 C.C. Bridges, Ethan X. Thomas, and Kallysten
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication


Beyond Meridian by C. C. Bridges


Chapter One

The kid should have looked out of place in the bar. Too young for this crowd, too freshly scrubbed, narrow shoulders under a heavy jacket, with wheat blond hair that fell perfectly straight around his face instead of tangling into matted knots. Wide blue eyes regarded Raine from the other side of the table, and while they did make him look ridiculously young, something about them made Raine feel like the guy was looking right through him.

Despite the fact that he should have been a target—fresh meat on Meridian, where someone that pretty would have been stamped with a pleasure-worker tattoo and set up in one of the whorehouses that spacers came to the planet for—nobody bugged this kid. He’d walked through the room and not a single spacer gave him the time of day, until he plunked down on the other side of Raine’s table.

Everyone knew this was his table. You didn’t bother Rick Raine when he was at his table, with a tall, cool Siennan beer in the center and a deck of old-fashioned cards flipping between his fingers.

He barely blinked at Raine’s tone, ignoring the implied shove off. “Who said anything about business? Maybe I just want to have a drink.”

He liked the kid’s spirit. Raine snapped his fingers and drew one of the barmaids toward his table—their table now, he supposed. “Cleo, get this fine young man a drink.”

“I got it,” the kid interrupted, plunking down a nice-sized chit. Well now, maybe Raine might be swayed into doing business in the bar after all.

He slouched down in his seat, the motion making him look smaller and even younger. “You can call me Karl,” he said, making Raine wonder what he was hiding. “Nobody sent me. Your name came up when I asked around the spaceport. I’m looking for passage.”

Karl seemed to have this all planned out. “Don’t need any crew right now. Besides, you don’t look like you know a spanner from a light drive.”

Cleo showed up with their drinks, two short glasses brimming with the dark violet liquid. She dropped them on the table, winking at Raine when he tugged on her skirt. He didn’t miss Karl’s narrowed eyes at that. This was freakin’ Meridian; the kid should know he’d be more likely to see worse than that. Hell, if he’d been at the spaceport, he must’ve seen worse.

“I only take on crew when I need the extra help for the cargo. I’m not shipping anything right now.” Raine picked up his glass and downed the brandy in one go, relishing the burning cold in his belly. Wasn’t the best vintage, but this wasn’t the place you went if you were picky about the brandy.

Frowning, Karl attempted to toss back his own glass and came up sputtering and coughing. He’d probably never even had Meridian brandy before. Raine didn’t hide his laughter this time. “Kid, what the hell are you doing out here?”

“Oh yeah, in what? UPA credit?” He took a guess, because no way was this boy for real. At the silence he nodded. “You just don’t scream border rat to me.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me.” At that snarl Raine realized the kid had some bite to him. Well, they might be doing some kind of business after all, just not the kind Karl had in mind. Raine liked bed partners with some teeth on ’em. “I can pay you in Confed chits, if that’s what you want.”

Karl stared into his glass, swirling the remaining purple liquid. “I need a reliable cruiser and a captain who has plenty of discretion.”

“I’d heard the name Raine was the standard in private cargo transport for over thirty years.” Karl looked him over, since obviously Raine wasn’t that old.

“My father,” he said, leaving it at that. Raine had taken over the family business when his daddy met the wrong end of a laser pistol, nearly ten years ago now. It had been him and his ship since Raine was seventeen. “You could say I’m coasting on his reputation. Where do you need to go, kid? Not that I’m committing to anything, you hear?”

Karl gave him a small, tight smile. Shame, Raine would like to see what a real smile would do to that baby face. “Mendhem. I need passage there and back, with possibly another passenger in tow.”

Mendhem. He might as well have said Tanvir, the goddamn capital of the Confederation. Mendhem was controlled by one of the most infamous warriors in the Confed military, General Purohit. Raine tended to avoid the place, which was too strictly controlled for the kind of cargo he dealt with. “You’d be lucky to find anyone to take you near there.”

“Look.” Karl seemed to collect himself after a moment. “Maybe we can help each other out. If I can get you cargo to transport, would you consider taking me on?”

“That’s a yes only if you can get me cargo to transport,” Raine told him. Before he could second-guess himself, he continued. “I run a business, not a damn charity ship. When you find something, come find me in berth 52, south side of the port.”

Raine chased the taste of the brandy with the remains of his beer, wondering which one of them was biting off more than they could chew.

Karl left the bar with hope burning in his gut for the first time since he had landed on Meridian. Nothing had gone as planned from the moment he stepped off the military transport that had taken him from Earth to the outer edge of the United Planetary Alliance, the UPA. He’d expected civilian cruisers to be unreliable, but wasn’t prepared for the hazards of traveling into the border. One emergency landing into a battle zone due to engine failure had Karl wondering if he would live to see Meridian, never mind make it to the heart of the Confederation of Free Planets.

He shouldn’t have been so surprised. There was a war going on, and it had been raging his entire life. Karl couldn’t imagine what the universe would be like if the UPA and Confed weren’t at each other’s throats. Without the war, Sam wouldn’t be trapped on Mendhem, so deep undercover that no one could trace her. But hell, if it hadn’t been for the war, he might never have met Sam in the first place. And without Sam, he might have been trapped on this hellhole of a planet, with a pleasure-worker tattoo stamped on his lower back, making payment for the debts his mother had left at her death.

Karl had never wanted to come back here. He wanted this place to fade away with the memory of his childhood, growing up in one of the many brothels that catered to the spacers. The place had changed, he had thought when he had stepped out of his transport and into the city for the first time, the acrid smell of ship fuel still in his nostrils. It didn’t seem as grand, as bright and shiny and large, as it had to his twelve-year-old self. Meridian was smoky, the old bronze-colored towers and bridges seemed caked with dirt and age, traffic filled the air, shuttles fighting for right of way.

Weariness dogged his steps, and Karl could not get the captain out of his mind. Raine was arrogant, too certain of his own attractiveness, and damned if the man wasn’t attractive—long dark hair and nebula blue eyes, strong chin, mouth made for smiling. Karl knew better than to trust that. He’d seen too much ugliness cloaked in beauty, but Raine was his best hope of getting deep into the Confed without being tracked. He only had to figure how to get out again, with Sam in tow.

As he made his way from the shuttle stop through the streets, Karl kept his head down, blending in with the crowd, the locals who lived down here instead of the tourists looking for a good time. He headed for one of the pleasure salons, hoping he was right about the owner. He’d done his research before leaving Earth. Surely it had to be her, unique name, right age. She must have gotten enough to pay off her contract and start her own house.

Still, when he walked into the salon, a startling ray of light in the dark and dirty city, Karl wasn’t quite sure. Sweet perfume hit his nose, nearly covering the scent of sex and musk. Bright, colorful pillows filled the lobby, with a variety of pleasure workers lounging on them, as much ornamentation as the crystal chandelier or the metallic mosaic on the walls. There were pretty girls in sheer dresses, tall young men in nothing more than loose pants hanging low on their hips, and still others who seemed somewhere in between genders. They turned their attention on him, and Karl had to refrain from smiling. It reminded him too much of home.

At that she nodded and disappeared through a heavy curtain that hung at the back of the room. He tucked his hands in his pockets, his duffel bag cutting into his shoulder, but he couldn’t put it down, not yet. Karl tried to ignore the others watching, wondering who he was. He probably didn’t look wealthy enough to afford this salon. Nikala had done well for herself.

When she walked into the room it was like going back in time ten years. Nikala had changed of course, grown older, but nothing could change the beauty of her smoky dark eyes, nor the way her black hair hung past her waist, gleaming under the lights of the salon. He remembered those hands, strong and warm as they sheltered him from a beating, from their mistress’s wrath. Most of all, he remembered that sad, gentle smile as she stroked his hair.

She took him inside the salon, past the glitter and opulent rooms to her own living quarters, making him sit in her worn but comfortable couch, and calling for a girl named Shilvi to bring them food and drink. It was a relief, after his time spent transferring from ship to ship, to just be able to sit and relax, and eat something that wasn’t space rations.

Nikala sat across from him, pulling a length of hair over her shoulder and braiding it absently, as she’d so often done during his childhood.

“You have her eyes,” she marveled, reaching out with her hand then letting it drop before actually touching him. Nikala looked away, as if she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze.

He bowed his head for a moment, trying to picture in his mind the mother he had lost long ago. “Sometimes I barely remember her.”

Karl let his head drop. She was right, he did, but telling her too much would put Nikala and her entire salon in danger. As long as he operated in secret, they were safe. “I’ll tell you what I can,” he said finally.

Nikala nodded; she expected nothing more. “Shilvi, prepare the tea, please. Something restful. I think we all could use a decent night’s sleep.”

Karl watched as the girl moved to the kitchenette, setting an old-fashioned teakettle to boil. He smiled. Nikala had always hated the machine-made tea they’d been forced to drink at Rachel’s. She complained she needed to see the water boiling. Shilvi moved with precise grace, the long fabric of her clothing not hampering her in the slightest as she prepared the cups. She was young, too young, he thought, wondering how she’d come to this life.

Speaking of that. “How did you get to own your own place?” Karl had been curious about that since seeing Nikala’s name on the roster of salon owners.

“How do things usually come to pass here? On the misfortune of others.” She frowned but brightened when Shilvi placed a tray of steaming cups on the end table. Nikala took one and stared down into its depths, as if the rising steam spoke to her. “You remember Madam Rachel? Of course you do.”

Karl didn’t interrupt her train of thought; he merely took his own cup and sat back down, waiting to hear the end of the tale. The rich aroma tickled his nose, the flavor so much stronger than anything he’d tasted in years. It teased at his mind, bringing back memories long forgotten.

“It was almost five years after you and Janis left us. They arrested Rachel for passing information to the Confederation. When she was convicted, they dissolved her property, splitting the funds among all of her workers. I had already begun saving for my own salon, so I purchased a little hovel near the spaceport. It was surprisingly successful.” Nikala sipped her tea carefully.

“I don’t think there is anything surprising about it.” Karl grinned at her. He sobered. “What happened to Rachel?” He didn’t know the Meridian penalty for treason, and while the planet had a mostly amicable relationship with the Confederation, any show of favoritism to either side would ruin whatever bit of credible neutrality Meridian had left.

Karl’s blood ran cold at her words, and he knew it must have shown on his face from the way Nikala paused in mid-sip. He’d forgotten how easily someone could be made a slave, this close to the Confed, where they depended on slavery to survive. At least Meridian workers could eventually buy their way out of their contracts.

“It’s Sam—Janis,” he revised, in case she had forgotten. He braced himself for the half-truth he was about to tell. “She’s been sold into slavery. It’s why I’ve come, to get her free.” Karl did not mention that Sam had willingly gone, let herself be sold as an agent of the UPA. He didn’t know the specifics of her mission, only that she had missed her return rendezvous. The less Nikala knew, the better. At least he could offer her some explanation.

“I suppose he doesn’t want to lose money on transporting me.” Karl frowned. “It shouldn’t be hard to find someone who has something to haul.”

Crimson by Ethan X. Thomas


Chapter One

Ben Kraft swore, every word he muttered a plume of white in the icy downpour, and keyed the ship’s wavelength into his wrist pad one more time. Fried circuits crackled in response. If he was lucky, the high-voltage taser mounted into his other gauntlet would still fire, but the scattered debris of their zip bikes said luck had already run out. Twisted metal littered the forest floor, splattered with carnage even the rain couldn’t wash away. When he could finally radio the ship for reinforcements, he would retrieve the bodies of his men. Until then, all Ben could do was curse himself and keep slogging through the mud.

Adam waited ten paces ahead. He pushed up his goggles, and pure black eyes peered at Ben through sheets of falling water. After three years with Adam as his second-in-command, Ben hardly noticed the starling’s lack of whites anymore.

Ben growled assent. I should have suspected an ambush, he thought, and drew his mental shields tighter about him. The symbiot implanted at the base of his skull flexed with the effort, shifting against his spine. Ben rubbed at his nape until the tiny, star-shaped creature settled again. As a police officer, he needed its short-range telepathy and other gifts, even enjoyed them from time to time, but the last thing he wanted now was Adam’s own starfish picking up on his guilt.

Ben’s smile grew rigid at the name. He doubled the barriers in his mind and thrust old memories behind them, concentrating on the squelch of steel boots in the muck. If he listened hard enough, the past would disappear. If he imagined what confronting Tazu Masato would bring—

“Sure,” Adam snapped back. “Our squad’s wiped out, so you might as well stomp loud enough to wake the dead. Kill us both too, right?”

Ben stared. Adam regarded him with head cocked, a single dark feather curled up from his soaked crest in a question mark. The starling’s skin gleamed like wet steel, nearly the same shade of blue as his body armor. Stubborn lines framed Adam’s full mouth, but they did little to age his youthful face.

Ben eyed his second-in-command. Adam still possessed a boy’s round cheeks, but his armor accentuated the broad shoulders and narrow hips of a man’s frame. He towered over Ben, every inch of his body comprised lean muscle. If starlings hadn’t been made for flight, they had certainly been made for sex.

Ben laughed, though he tried not to do so. He wasn’t about to compare miseries. The sodden lining of his armor hung heavy on his bones. He wondered briefly if Adam felt as cold and wrung out as he did. He doubted it, given that Adam was twenty-eight to Ben’s bruised and aching forty-four. Spiritually bruised and aching, anyway. His symbiot cured everything else.

Adam’s face darkened, frustration bringing navy to his cheeks. He opened his mouth as if to say more, then froze, his posture that of a bird about to take wing. “Do you sense it?”

Ben sighed. If he closed his eyes and reached out with his symbiot, he could see it too: a cave just beyond the next ring of trees.

“I would have preferred a damn bear!” Ben screamed. He leapt, swinging his gauntlets in a wide arc, and the bronze heads of a half dozen bots rolled across the citadel floor. The weight of his boots crushed two more into the stones as he landed, but the citadel’s robotic defense squad kept coming. With each unit destroyed, another battalion teemed into the grow-op’s narrow corridor, pushing he and Adam farther back and farther apart.

Ben grunted, dragged to his knees. Another robotic wave surged forward, tearing at his armor. Metal fingers scrabbled at his chest plate, stabbed at his ribs. In another moment they’d have his heart, and even his symbiot would be unable to repair the damage then.

Ben never saw the bots fall. A sudden blast from Adam’s gauntlet filled the corridor with light, and shrapnel rained down a heartbeat later, pinging off Ben’s own weapons and goggles. When Ben’s vision cleared, a single bot twitched beside him on the floor. The last of Adam’s taser-bolt’s charge played over its skeletal limbs. Ben struggled to his feet and kicked the thing, hard.

Adam tensed, listening. He nodded sharply once, plumage bobbing and sweat dripping down his face, and then took off for the stairs at the end of the corridor. Footfall clanked behind them even as they climbed to the grow-op’s next level. Red and white somata mushrooms clung to the citadel’s damp walls, ready for harvest.

Ben pushed ahead of Adam. Beneath his battered armor, every hair on his body rose. Sheer instinct or another of his symbiot’s gifts, he no longer cared. Something—everything—about this mission had gone terribly wrong. Foreboding crawled over his skin. He had lost his men and he had lost Tazu, if Tazu had ever been here at all. What would slip through his grasp next?

Panting, Ben reached the top. Where intel said the citadel should have another floor stood a balcony, the forest spread beneath its crumbling balustrade in a wild, emerald swath. If not for the metallic footfall echoing behind them, Ben would have marveled at its beauty, but not now. No symbiot could save them if they fell.

“Tell the chief it’s my fault,” Ben ordered. “Forget what the intel said, I should have foreseen this. Of course the grow-op would be full of bots. Tazu has never dirtied his hands before.”

One by one, bots poured onto the balcony. No conscience shone in their eyes. Whatever programming they had focused on farming somata and killing whoever invaded those farms at any cost. Like Adam.

Ben flung the gauntlet. It wouldn’t fire, he knew that. He’d tried it twice. Instead it exploded with a roar of lightning and flame, its shell and the bots that had surrounded it flung in every direction, neither whole any longer.

Metal streaked past Ben, pierced his chest. He groped at his bare skin, felt sticky wetness, but there was no time to examine the wound. Ben felt the gushing beneath his hand in the same instant he staggered back. He stumbled onto the balustrade behind him and it gave way in a shower of ancient stone.

Above him, Viridian’s two suns rode high in the sky. Until that breath, Ben hadn’t realized the rain had stopped. The wind tore at him, as undeniable as the pain, and just as unimportant. This was what it was like to fly. He felt no fear. He felt only—

“Adam.” The name slipped free before Ben could forbid it, before he knew it was there to forbid at all. Terror surged through him, and he scrambled wildly at the air. He gasped. Blood bubbled up past his lips.

Locked hands compressed Ben’s chest again and again, so heavy he was certain his ribs would crack. Then, when there should have been peace, fingers lifted his chin and a mouth claimed his own. Breath forced its way down his throat. A tongue touched his.

A tongue? The man above him explored everything. He traced the ridges of Ben’s teeth, drew patterns on the soft insides of his cheeks. Ben moaned, and his lover plunged deeper still, demanding more.

Ben let his head fall back, responding to the kiss. How long had it been since he’d had a man atop him? Years, surely, since one had spread his legs, had rocked against him like this. Hardness nudged Ben’s hip. Sparks shot through him with the contact, and he struggled to grasp the naked body pressed to his, his touch skimming over strong, tight muscles. At long last, Ben seized one of the hands that caressed him and led it to his groin. “Adam. Adam, please.”

“Please, what?” Ben’s lover pulled back. A mane of chestnut hair framed his face, graying at the temples. A smile unfurled in the darkness of his goatee, as bright as a freshly polished sickle and just as sharp.

Ben screamed, but only a gurgle emerged. He clawed at the face above him. Almost at once the flesh beneath his nails lost solidity, taking the dream with it, abandoning him in eye-searing brightness.

“Wuh—” Ben tried again to speak and couldn’t. His stomach jerked against the tube thrust down his throat. He tore at the medical tape that held it in place, and then dragged it out, pain burning through his esophagus, through his shoulder. The tubes in his hands were easier, but just. He fell back against the mattress beneath him, chest heaving. Alarms shrilled around him.

Ben lunged for her and nearly fell out of bed altogether. His fingers trembled around her wrist. “My partner—did my partner make it?”

“No.” Ben coughed and flecks of blood dotted the white sheet spread over his lap. He looked away from them quickly, meeting the nurse’s eyes again, but could not hold her gaze. He released her, face aflame. No matter how wounded, officers did not behave like this. He did not behave like this.

Her own color high, the nurse shut down the protesting equipment piece by piece. “You have your symbiot to thank,” she said crisply, “not us. All we did was patch up what it couldn’t.”

“That’s saying something.” Without thinking, Ben reached for the back of his neck, and pain flared in his shoulder again. He winced.

Her expression softened slightly, and she took up his arm to hold two fingers against his inner wrist. “Don’t worry. Your symbiot pulled through too.”

Ben nodded dumbly. He let the nurse help him into the ill-fitting gray and white shift, and then lay back again. The bed was softer than it should have been, far too soft for a police medical bay. Only civilian hospitals provided care like this. Being in one meant his injuries had been very massive. And Adam’s?

Ben frowned before he could help it, recognizing the voice at once. Nashiim stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, one armored shoulder set against the jamb. Goggles stood out against his dark pate like a second set of eyes, just as accusatory as his first.

Nashiim raised a gloved hand and the nurse drifted into the hall without a word. He didn’t look back at her. “Pleased you pulled through, Lieutenant Kraft. Do you know where you are?”

“Only fair after what you pulled to save him.” Nashiim settled into the chair beside the bed. “I’m not sure if I should commend you for bravery or suspend you for stupidity.”

“What?” Ben quickly shook his head. “Of course not. Adam’s been on the force for over three years. He’s not the one making mistakes. I am.”

Nashiim stood. He unclipped a data-reader from his belt and threw it on the bed. “Congratulations on your recovery, Lieutenant. Start reading.”

Footfall echoed in the corridor, as familiar as the contours of Ben’s gauntlets. He smiled before he could stop it. He sat up quickly, smothering the expression behind his hand, and pushed memory away. It had been CPR between them and nothing else. It wouldn’t be anything else. Nashiim could insist they work together, but he couldn’t make them friends.

“For several hours now. I expected you earlier.” Ben straightened his shift, fighting to keep his cool. It didn’t matter if Adam caught sight of his thighs. They were officers. They’d showered together before. Everyone did. Besides, Adam wasn’t in armor either. A white, synthetic cotton T-shirt stretched tight across his chest, tucked into even tighter jeans.

Ben forced himself to examine the shadow that lined Adam’s jaw as a scientist would a specimen on a microscope slide. He’d never noticed the dimples that framed Adam’s mouth before, or the fullness of his bottom lip. “You’ve got feathers on your chin.”

Ben’s stomach rolled at the sight. Doing this, pretending to be a bigot—Ben shook his head. Some things were just too far out of line. He swallowed. “Forgive me. Blame it on the head injury.”

“Not to mention the broken arm and the gaping hole in your chest?” Adam laughed, but the sound came out as natural as plastic, and as brittle. He crossed to the bed. Blue fingers closed over Ben’s hand, squeezing in time with his heartbeat, and lifted away.

Ben picked up the device Nashiim had left behind. With a tap he brought up the latest dossier, and showed the screen to Adam. “Our next stop is Granatas. Four senators lifted bans on somata immediately after visiting the planet. It may be a coincidence, but the chief wants us to check it out.”

Ben shrugged and immediately wished he hadn’t. The painkillers were already fading. His symbiot would have him completely healed soon, but not soon enough. “Illegal goods and Tazu go hand in hand. You know that. Besides, Nashiim wouldn’t send us if they didn’t think it was necessary.”

Ben rubbed at his chin. His own beard had begun to sprout there, its stubble rasping against his fingertips. In the past he would have asked if Adam wanted to talk. The news reports had been only too happy to show the enormous ships that had once been the starlings’ prisons, right down to the bodies of their former captors piled waist-deep in dark corridors. Laid low by a virus, the giants looked vicious even in death. Ben could only imagine the damage their maws and talons could inflict, but the stiff set of Adam’s shoulders said his guess wasn’t far off.

Ben sighed. “You wrote the reports, Adam. How many mistakes did we make on Viridian? Nashiim’s not going to give us a bust any time soon.”

Adam turned to the hospital window. The city night spread out before him, its skyline like a thousand tiny gems stitched into velvet. Ships passed back and forth, soundless in the darkness. Eventually he shook his head. “No. Not with Tazu still free.”

Adam looked back at him. The black mirrors of his eyes reflected the city’s glitter. “Now what does this have to do with my beard?”

Moonlust by Kallysten


Chapter One

In the vastness of space, the two ships came together as smoothly as ballet dancers from Fra’is—not that Kar had ever seen any of those. Only the wealthiest members of the Lodge could afford such entertainment. He glanced at the navigation station on his right and wondered if Jay had ever seen a ballet before leaving that world and his last name behind. Jay was humming a fast tune under his breath, his gaze darting over the navigation controls that flashed in front of him.

Jay raised his head a fraction, enough that Kar knew he had heard him, but the humming continued. Two seconds later, a loud clank announced they had made contact with the Cisseis.

Its voice was female today, and there was a singing quality to it that disconcerted Kar. He sighed and threw a tired look at Jay. “You messed with the synchro program again?”

Jay’s clear blue eyes turned to look at him as he leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above him. “Sounded too much like my posture instructor. Never could stand the bastard.”

Snorting, Kar rose from the captain’s chair and strode out of the cockpit, Jay on his heels. “And the voice before that sounded like your aunt—”

Jay’s heels thumped behind him, and Kar glanced back. Fingers bent against his forehead, Jay was saluting him as neatly as any Guardian Kar had ever seen. His smirk, however, spoiled the effect. “Aye, Captain.”

With a shake of his head, Kar started forward again, ignoring his navigator’s antics. Will was waiting in front of the living quarters, a bemused expression on his face. That was all Kar needed now, more lip from his crew. He walked faster and passed Will with a glance that dared him to say a word. Will didn’t seem to mind and fell into step with them, hands in his pockets and his long strides easily matching Kar’s rapid pace until they were side by side.

Kar raised his eyes to the ceiling, then frowned as he spotted a trail of rust on a pipe and made a mental note to check it later. One more thing to check. He loved his ship, but the damn thing sure didn’t seem to love him back. “No one asked you to salute.”

“Nobody asked Jay to salute either.” Kar massaged his temples, two firm fingers on each side. There were days when he thought he’d have been better off slaving over a patch of dirt on his home planet. Then again, fourteen years spent without stars under Carelleion’s two suns and three moons had been quite enough. “Will you two open the nexus doors or do I have to do everything on this ship?”

They had arrived in the cargo bay, and Kar stopped in front of a metal door. Jay’s careful navigation had aligned the Danaus and the Cisseis so that the magnetic strips on each ship’s nexus interlocked. All they needed now was to open two doors on this side and for the crew of the Cisseis to do the same thing on their side, and the trade could begin.

Feet planted solidly on the metal floor of his ship and his arms crossed over his chest, Kar took a deep breath. They had good merchandise to trade, and the Cisseis usually gave fair prices. Everything would go just fine.

He inclined his head when Will and Jay looked at him. Jay’s fingers flew over a line of manual switches, deactivating the doors’ secure locks. When the alarm beeped once, Will grabbed the wheel in the center of the door and turned it. His face reddened at the effort, and the horizontal scar on his cheek seemed even paler in contrast.

The pressurized door opened inward with a whisper of rushing air. Will adjusted the fingerless gloves on his hands and entered the nexus to open the second door. When he came out to stand by Jay’s side, the nexus had become an open corridor between the two ships, twenty-five yards long and wide enough for two men to walk abreast. Kar could already see the captain of the Cisseis, Dav Lyenne, striding toward him with a brilliant smile plastered on his face. Wide pants in a violent shade of green were tucked into his boots. They clashed horribly with a bright red shirt.

“Karmykel!” Lyenne emerged from the nexus and stopped, striking an ostentatious pose, arms raised so that the triangles of fabric attached to his sleeves framed him like wings. “It has been too long, my friend.”

Kar forced a tight smile onto his lips and held out his hand to Lyenne. Friend was not a word he would have used to describe the other captain, but he wasn’t about to say as much before they started trading. The way Kar saw it, they did business together, and things stopped there. He had trouble trusting people who smiled too freely, or who flaunted clothes they could only have acquired on one of the Prime Planets. Black pants and a simple black shirt had always served him right. On that, his crew followed his lead, though as he glanced at them, he wondered, as he so often did, how Jay could bear to wear pants so snug. They looked even tighter, he was chagrined to notice, when Will’s hand was stuck in the back pocket. Couldn’t they behave?

He forced his eyes back to Lyenne and gave his hand a firm shake. “Too long, indeed. I heard you don’t follow local trade routes regularly anymore.”

Lyenne puffed up his chest. “You’ve heard right, at that. I’m moving up in the universe.” His arms rose again, as though the extra fabric on his sleeves somehow signified anything other than his foolishness. “But I’ll always trade with old friends. What do you have for me?”

Kar led him to the first stack of cargo boxes and undid the clasps on one of them before flicking the lid open. Lyenne stepped closer to examine the saffra powder. Some traders vaunted the quality of their goods until they were blue in the face; Kar preferred to let his merchandise speak for itself.

While Lyenne rubbed a pinch of spices between his thumb and forefinger, Kar looked back at his crew and couldn’t help rolling his eyes at them. Will had pushed Jay back against the wall and was leaning into his neck, murmuring words Kar couldn’t hear but that made Jay’s lips curl into a lazy smile. Kar cleared his throat loudly, and the two men threw guilty glances at him as they straightened. At least, Kar wanted to believe they felt guilty. He had no desire to repeat that painful conversation about business, personal matters, and the many ways the two should not mix on his ship.

Even as far away from the Prime Planets as they were, no trader worth his ship would be caught without the credentials for anything he wanted to sell. It didn’t matter so much that the paperwork was authentic as long as the forgery looked good enough. Planets in the outer systems weren’t too inquisitive as far as paperwork went, but they still insisted on the proper credentials to accompany any goods traded to them. Guardians looked at those credentials a lot more closely when they boarded a trade ship for inspection, but Kar tried his best to avoid systems where he knew the Lodge kept a Guardians outpost.

Kar frowned as he gestured Lyenne to the second, larger stack of boxes. It was unwise to show too much interest in a potential trade, of course, but Lyenne wasn’t very good at hiding his thoughts. The fact that he wasn’t raving about the quality of the saffra—and it was of a damn good quality, Kar was no fool to trade for junk—didn’t bode well.

Lyenne let out a dramatic sigh. “Moonsilk? Raw moonsilk? No one trades for that anymore. You don’t keep up with fashion, do you?” He looked Kar up and down, his nose wrinkling in distaste. “It’s all about colors, my friend. The brighter, the better. Now if you had chromore to trade with that moonsilk, I’d take the whole lot from your hands.” He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “It pains me to leave you with non-tradeable goods, really.”

Kar clenched his teeth. He had traded high for that moonsilk not two weeks earlier. Part of him wanted to call Lyenne on the lie, but he couldn’t afford to offend him, not when the Danaus was on her last box of food. How long until his crew tired of it and quit? Unlike Kar, neither of them was used to going hungry. His gaze drifted behind Lyenne, and he crossed his arms again. Jay and Will were back at it.

Will’s fingers were tracing the tattooed lines that encircled Jay’s throat like a necklace. Any second now, it’d be his lips on Jay’s skin instead of his fingers, and another one of these purplish bruises would bloom. Kar hated those bruises—and he hated that he could never stop staring at them. A muscle ticked in his jaw. If these two didn’t cut it out, he’d trade them instead of the moonsilk. Hell, he’d even pay Lyenne to take them off his ship.

“I know this is not what you wanted to hear,” Lyenne said, misinterpreting his growing annoyance and drawing Kar’s attention back to him. “But as I said, if you had chromore…”

At that, Lyenne beamed. “What a coincidence! I just happen to know where you can…acquire some. I’d go myself, but these days I try to keep a low profile, if you know what I mean…”

Kar had a pretty good idea what Lyenne meant. He knew where one could steal this chromore but didn’t want to dirty his hands by doing the stealing himself. As a rule, Kar didn’t like to steal. Even this far from the Prime Planets, Guardians patrolled all mining operations that belonged to the Lodge.

“Ah, but who’s talking about them?” Lyenne gestured dismissively. “They have some sort of festival on the main planet right now, and the entire moon will be deserted for five more days. The refining factory will just be waiting for you.”

Kar had been called many things since embarking on a ship as a wide-eyed kid close to twenty years earlier, but no one had ever called him stupid who hadn’t lived to regret it. It was extraordinarily convenient that Lyenne happened to know where to find chromore and would impart this knowledge to Kar at the precise moment when the mineral lay unguarded. Kar wondered if Lyenne had suggested this business opportunity to others already—or if Kar was the first who had looked desperate enough to accept.

“Four large boxes of food for the saffra,” he said, easily sliding in the strong tones of trading. “And twenty thousand credits for the moonsilk and the chromore when I come back.”

He had expected Lyenne to protest the price of the saffra and was surprised when he thrust a hand at him. “Done. But for that price, I want at least fifty boxes of chromore.”

“Will! Get your ass over here and carry the saffra over to the Cisseis now, or ask Captain Lyenne if he’s got room on his ship for you.”

Will raised his head and turned an amused look to Kar, his lips set in a smile just shy of derisive. With a mock salute, he went to grab the lift. Jay joined him and helped him pull the first box onto the flat bed of the lift. Lyenne chuckled and clapped Kar on the back.

Kar glared at him, but Lyenne, his eyebrow suddenly rising in surprise, didn’t notice. His eyes were on Jay. He licked his lips before saying in a very low voice, “It’s funny, I could have sworn those tattoos looked like—”

Lyenne’s chuckle this time was weak, as though he were not sure whether Kar was joking or not. “I’ll send the food over. And the coordinates.”

At that, he took regal steps back to his ship, waving his hand over his shoulder. Teeth clenched, Kar stomped over to the stack of saffra and pulled a box from Jay’s hands. He gave him a harsh look and tried to ignore the red mark on his neck, which was half on the tattoo, half off. Damn them.

Jay’s full lips tightened into a thin line. His eyes darkened, no longer a summer sky, now a rising storm. He considered Kar for a few seconds, his back straightening slowly until he stood ramrod straight. “I never went to see the ballet, Captain. Would you like to know why?”

Suddenly, his words were crisp, each syllable detached and smooth. Behind him, Will shook his head and smiled, but he continued working. Kar said nothing.

“All things that are worth having are worth having on your own terms,” Jay said in the same tone. “I didn’t go to see the ballet. The ballet came to me.”

Despite being a couple of inches shorter than Kar, he managed to stare him down before he turned on his heel and walked away. Somehow, in his simple pants and sleeveless shirt, he managed to look more stately than Lyenne in his flamboyant attire.

Will started guiding the lift down toward the nexus, but he looked back at Kar, dark eyes gleaming mischievously. “I guess I’ll have to put him in a better mood.”

Kar watched him go and shook his head. Sometimes, he really wanted to fire the two of them and fly solo. Surely no amount of loneliness could be worth the daily torture these two inflicted on him without even knowing it.