Ryke ignored her.
“Why don’t you like robots?” Bakiel asked Anguissa. “Princesses I’ve known have relied upon android service to keep from doing anything themselves.”
“She’s not your typical princess,” Ryke reminded him.
“Not a typical princess from Centurios, that’s for sure,” Anguissa supplied. “What little I know about them isn’t working for me.”
“But why not robots?”
“Well, they’re outlawed on Incendium, so I grew up with a natural aversion to them. Once I met a few, though, it became personal.”
“Why?” Bakiel asked but Ryke was interested as well.
“They do what they’re told,” Anguissa explained. “Exactly what they’re told, and I don’t like that.”
“Well, that explains why you like Ryke,” Bakiel countered, relaxing in her presence. “He never does anything he’s told to do. Why, his father...”
“Bakiel!” Ryke growled in warning.
Bakiel visibly bit his tongue and fell silent, his pale eyes flicking from Ryke to Anguissa and back.
No doubt about it. Anguissa had a dangerous power over Bakiel. The knowledge made Ryke wary.
“So, Ryke has a father,” Anguissa said cheerfully. “That’s unexpected news.”
“Did you think I was hatched from a pod, Princess?”
“There’s something about you, Ryke, that makes it hard to believe you’re not completely solitary, that you didn’t just spontaneously appear somewhere as, maybe, your birthright. But now I’ve met Bakiel, your friend, and I’ve learned that you have a father. Let me build up my strength a bit before you shake my assumptions again, please.” Anguissa winked at Bakiel who grinned. He was obviously completely taken by her.
“Why is it an issue that robots do what they’re told?” Ryke asked, curious that she’d list that as an issue. He would have thought she’d like obedience.
He did.
Anguissa finished her meal and sighed with satisfaction, treating Bakiel to a smile so brilliant that Ryke wished she’d smile at him that way. “Thank you again, Bakiel. That was wonderful.”
The other man blushed.
Then Anguissa turned a bright glance upon Ryke. “Do you know anything about Argetan silicon?”
“Only that it’s the best in the universe.”
“And rare,” Bakiel interjected. “Even the last I heard, it was really expensive.”
“Exactly. Once upon a time, not so very long ago, I was hauling a load of Argetan silicon. It was a good contract, delivering the silicon from the mines on a distant moon in their system to the refinery on their home planet. The terms were fair and the price was more than excellent, to be paid on delivery.”
Ryke sat back and guessed “But not without risk.”
Anguissa shook her head. “No. The Gloria Furore had infiltrated the wormholes in their system and were raiding the deliveries. They were seizing the freighters and transiting them against their will, battling for custody of the ore in other systems, then ransoming the ore back to Argetan. The Argetans were quite honest about the risks when the contract was assigned.”
“But you still took it.”
“Oh yeah. Because there was also a bounty if the pirating raids by the Gloria Furore could be stopped.”
“You didn’t take them on?” Ryke was horrified.
Anguissa smiled. “I certainly did.”
He shifted on his seat, not liking the sounds of this at all. It was one thing to have courage. It was quite another to spit in the eye of the most violent and vengeful league of space pirates ever known.
Pretty much the way he had just done. How exactly was Ryke going to ensure that he wasn’t captured again?
Anguissa continued easily. “I’d met another pilot in the bar at a station frequented by freighters like mine. It doesn’t matter where or when it was. The thing was that he told me about both the contract’s availability and the Gloria Furore’s scheme.”
“Because he’d survived it.”
Anguissa nodded. “Barely. He was retiring, heading back to his home planet to grow sprouts and watch the suns rise. He said he couldn’t take the risk anymore.”
“But you like risk.”
“Love it. It proves to me that I’m alive.” She smiled slightly in recollection and Ryke knew exactly how she’d won that pilot’s confidence. Something tightened within him but he knew it wasn’t jealousy.
He was never jealous.
Of anyone.
“Did he let you be on top?” he asked without meaning to do so.
Anguissa’s smile filled with such satisfaction that Ryke wished he’d been able to stay silent. “It’s the best way,” she purred. “Too bad you didn’t let me show you. You might have been converted. Maybe you’ll dream about it, Ryke. Or me?”
“I won’t have to dream about you. You’ll be staying with me.”
Anguissa shook her head, her gaze unswerving. She was so convinced of her decision and her right to make it that Ryke didn’t know how to argue with her.
He frowned and pretended to be fascinated by his meal. Truth be told, it tasted a whole lot less delicious than it has just moments before.
Anguissa continued her story with familiar confidence. “He told me where they went to fight over the payload.”
“And you thought you could outsmart them,” Ryke said with disgust. “Did it ever occur to you that he might have been one of their agents?”
“It did, but I was tempted. I went in, eyes open, took the contract and left the mining moon with my hold stuffed full of high-grade silicon. They came out of the wormhole exactly as he had said they would. We pretended to be surprised and let ourselves be taken. We were transported to the very same system that the pilot had told me would be their destination. It was on the end of a distant sector, an uninhabited system.”
“No witnesses or chances of intervention,” Ryke muttered, well familiar with the strategy. It was typical of the Gloria Furore to isolate their intended victims and leave few choices—except the one that would doom the victim.
“Except for one small detail,” Anguissa said with satisfaction. “I’d made some preparations.”
“What kind of preparations?”
“I had two Starpods in the hold of my ship, nice little numbers with heavily armored hulls and considerable artilleries. We released them as soon as we reached the target system and I teleported to a third that we’d left in orbit around a moon.”
“Like junk.”
“Just like. So, the freighter was piloted by a robot, programmed for the navigation, and otherwise empty except for the payload of Argetan silicon. I knew they’d try to take the ship for the silicon. To force them to make their attempt sooner rather than later—”
“Because Starpods don’t have that much oxygen,” Ryke contributed, knowing how the Gloria Furore liked to wait for that vulnerability.
Anguissa nodded, evidently aware of it, too. “To force their hand, so to speak, the nav system of the ship with the cargo was programmed to dive into the sun of the system.”
“That trajectory was a feint to draw them out,” Ryke said.
“It worked. They came fast. The fight was short and fierce. We lost one Starpod when it was annihilated and the other was taken by the Gloria Furore. They tried to ransom my crew to me, but we’d planned another feint. The crew teleported to my Starpod just before the capture.”
“Much the way the Archangel jumped as soon as you were teleporting.”
“Exactly.”
“Risky business, princess.”
Her eyes lit. “The very best kind. As soon as they took that Starpod into their hold, the bomb detonated.”
“They must have known there was no one aboard.”
“No, my co-pilot over-rode the sensor data to report that there were two lifeforms aboard, even though there were none. He had the ability to disguise the transport, too.”
“He’s good.”
“Bond is very go
od,” Anguissa agreed with an enthusiasm that made Ryke wonder at the full extent of their relationship. He refused to consider what she thought of Bond as a lover. “It wouldn’t have stood up to a long scrutiny, but it didn’t have to send the false signal for long. The Gloria Furore’s ship sustained multiple damages and its hull fractured. We watched it go dark.”
Ryke couldn’t regret that any of the Gloria Furore had been exterminated. “And so you returned to your ship, delivered the silicon, and collected the reward, too.”
Anguissa shook her head. “Not exactly. It was the robot, you see.”
“I don’t see,” Bakiel said.
“It was imperative that the robot not know the full plan, in case the ship was taken before we won the battle against the Gloria Furore. In case they surprised us. So, the flight plan was to dive into the sun. Period.”
“Oh no,” Bakiel said.
“The last I heard from the robot was his congratulatory message on winning the battle against the Gloria Furore. We tried to send a message to change course, but the ship had entered the sun’s magnetic field. All we could do was watch as the ship and its payload were incinerated.”
Ryke couldn’t even imagine how much that had cost Anguissa, in addition to the ship itself. No wonder she held a grudge.
“And that’s why you hate robots?” Bakiel asked. “Because one made a mistake?”
“It wasn’t a mistake, not in its perspective.” Anguissa folded her arms across her chest. “Robots do what they’re told. Nothing more and nothing less. A truly sentient being would have seen that we had triumphed, known that we couldn’t possibly want to destroy the valuable payload, and would have changed course.”
“That lesson cost you a fortune,” Ryke said.
“And a whole lot of time,” Anguissa admitted. “We were in the back of beyond in a Starpod that wasn’t equipped for jumping. We had to wait for someone to come out of the wormhole and help us, ideally someone who was not the Gloria Furore.”
Ryke knew the probabilities against that. “Let me guess. Your pilot friend and informant decided to stop growing sprouts.”
Anguissa smiled. “He sent his daughter after us, afraid he’d steered me into trouble. She was a pilot, too.”
Ryke was thinking about the long memories of the Gloria Furore and that his escape might be considerably more complicated if the space pirates were hunting both him and Anguissa.
Then he thought of worms in nav systems.
“What if it wasn’t the robot at fault?” he asked and Anguissa turned to face him.
“What do you mean?”
“What if someone wanted you to lose the payload? What if there was a worm that overrode whatever command you gave the robot?”
“But who would do that? I trust my crew...”
“But one of them installed Hellemut’s worm in the Archangel’s nav system,” he felt obliged to point out. “Was Bond present for both missions?”
Anguissa stared at him, then shook her head. “Yes, but it can’t be him.”
“Who else was on both missions?”
“Only Bond,” she acknowledged, then shook her head. “It couldn’t have been him.”
“It could be anybody, Snake-Eyes,” Ryke said gently. He admired her faith in her crew, but such loyalty wasn’t always deserved.
“No! I’ve known Bond for half of forever.” Her snakes were writhing, more agitated than Ryke had ever seen them. He knew it was a sign that she was shaken by his suggestion. “He’s from Incendium. I trust him completely.”
“Maybe that’s not such a good idea. Everyone can be bought.”
“No,” she said, pushing to her feet. “No. You’re wrong about Bond.” She strode to the portal of the canteen. “Now, where’s your chart room? I want to see your course and choose my own.”
Ryke wasn’t fooled. He’d startled her and challenged the trust she had in her crew. In her place, he would have denied the possibility, too.
But he could almost hear Anguissa thinking, sorting through her memories and searching for any details that correlated with the suspicion, either way.
Given time, she’d either build a case for Bond or against him.
Ryke was prepared to wait.
He was even prepared to argue his suspicion with her again, especially if it meant she didn’t leave him just yet.
Not Bond.
It was impossible that Bond could have betrayed her.
But even as Anguissa fought against Ryke’s suggestion, she was remembering little incidents that hadn’t seemed important at the time. Bond insisting that he should have the entire suite of passwords to the Archangel, “just in case.” Bond out of sight when she expected him to be on deck when they confronted the Armada Seven. Bond averting his gaze, as if he had a secret.
A secret he was ashamed of.
Bond having friends in every port. Bond needing to meet up with those friends to catch up on old times as soon as they docked.
Not friends. Contacts. Bond had to report.
He’d been first off the Archangel on Incendium. Did the Gloria Furore have spies there? Here she’d believed his story that he had kids on Incendium. A family she’d never met or even seen. Did they exist?
Not Bond, she thought fiercely, even as she acknowledged the spy probably had been her trusted crew member.
What had been his price?
She left the canteen with her thoughts churning, and guessed that the chart room was between her current position and the deck. She heard Ryke following her but didn’t look back. She could do without any commentary on making another mistake.
It was a bit irritating how she kept showing herself badly in his presence.
Had that mistake been due to the Seed, too? No, she hadn’t been able to smell it during that first encounter, not from the deck of the Archangel. She’d been aware of Ryke, though, behind Captain Hellemut on the display of the Armada Seven’s deck, looking like a very tasty male specimen. She’d been aware of the censure in his intent gaze, too, but had thought at the time it was because he was truly allied with the Gloria Furore. They despised everyone who wasn’t on their side.
She hadn’t even smelled that he was an umbro, not then.
But his disapproval had been because she was a princess.
And not a passive one.
Anguissa turned when she felt a familiar tingle on the back of her neck. She turned and looked toward the deck. “The teleport is in use,” she whispered.
Ryke frowned. “No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is,” she insisted. “I heard it. I felt it.”
Ryke looked annoyed, probably because she corrected him. “You can’t possibly feel or hear the teleport from here and it’s locked down.”
“I heard it.”
“Impossible.”
“We have company, Ryke.”
“We do not. You’re getting jumpy.” He tapped the comm, his gaze locked with Anguissa’s. “Piper Twelve, has anyone boarded the ship without authorization?”
“Of course not, sir. The teleport is locked down.”
Ryke spread his hands, smug again. “Thank you, Piper Twelve.” He indicated a portal to the right. “Here,” he said. “Forget the teleport and have a look at this.” He entered an access code and the door slid open to reveal an old-style chart room.
Anguissa caught her breath. It was as magical as she’d always believed such rooms must be.
“I’ve never seen one,” she breathed as she stepped into the darkened room. “Except on the hologram and it’s not the same.”
“Not even close,” Ryke said with satisfaction. He stood inside the door, arms folded across his chest, watching her.
“Don’t look so proud of yourself,” Anguissa chided. “You didn’t invent it just for me.”
“No, but I’m showing it to you.”
“Leaving me to wonder what you want in exchange,” she replied, then examined the room without waiting for his reply.
Bakiel slipped i
nto the chart room behind them, as silent as morning fog, and surveyed the display.
Anguissa was fascinated. Although the chart room obviously had fixed dimensions, it didn’t appear to have any walls at all, much less a floor. Within it was a projection of the known universe, in all its glory, an interactive and three-dimensional map.
She felt like she was stepping into space itself, though it was actually just a model. The chart room seemed to be filled with glittering dust, spaced at wide intervals. Each speck of dust was a star, and when planets circled that star was the sun at the center of a system, even smaller darker dots rotated around it.
“All this variety,” Anguissa whispered, awed as she always was when she considered the universe.
“And more unknown,” Ryke said. He tugged on the glove with pointers embedded in the tips of fingers and thumb, and made a gesture. The depiction of the universe swirled, then one sector zoomed larger. She felt as if they dove into that sector and heard Bakiel catch his breath in awe. Everything within it was magnified, the suns becoming larger and brighter, and the planets more visible. She narrowed her eyes and studied the closest system, certain she could even see a few moons.
She wasn’t familiar with this quadrant at all. When Ryke reached out with his gloved hand, names appeared above systems and suns in the script of the universal standard language. Mytholos. Arkadeen. Krakaken. Names Anguissa had heard but locations she knew little about.
When Ryke moved his gloved hand, known wormholes glimmered in the proximity of this fingers, like lines of stardust. Some were brighter than others and she guessed that these were the clearer routes. There was a path illuminated in bright yellow light, and Anguissa knew this was their charted course. As Ryke had said, there were two more wormholes selected for jumps, but they didn’t look short to her.
“So, that’s Centurios?” she said, indicating the end point of the path.
“No!” Ryke responded, to her surprise. “This is all wrong!”
Five
“No.” Ryke strode across the chart room and back to Anguissa’s side, his annoyance clear. “This isn’t the course I programmed at all.”
“Are you sure?”
He glared at her. “Of course, I’m sure! I don’t make mistakes, Snake-Eyes.” He strode across the hologram, indicating a system. The word “Centurios” appeared above the largest planet in that system. Anguissa looked left and right. That planet wasn’t anywhere near their apparent destination.