BOOTY HUNTER Page 7

  I just hold her there. Pressed hard up against the wall as she shivers and shakes. And watch her light flicker. On and off, and on and off.

  Caught in a spell I never want out of.

  I want to look at her for a thousand spins and then a million more, she is that beautiful.

  CHAPTER TEN - LYRA

  Best-laid plans and all that good junk, right?

  “So…” Serpint says.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Cool,” he says. “Cool. I get that. But—”

  “I just want to go home,” I say.

  “Right. Well. Here we are.”

  The elevator door slides open and we both walk back into his quarters.

  Funny how things change. Because after he fucked my brains out—and boy, did he ever. Seven suns, I’ve never been fucked like that before. Two cocks! Two. I just can’t even describe the feeling. And I realize it’s partly due to the inhibitor I’ve been on, but… it was more than that.

  The myths about Akeelian men are true.

  But the funny part is that after all that talk about him leaving me up in the harem, how he was so done with me, how I was getting on his last nerve…

  We’re right back where we started.

  His place.

  Which I just called home.

  I close my eyes and sigh, sinking onto the couch, completely exhausted. All my plans ruined. My disguise blown. Because my hair is already turning pink again. My eyes as well. I don’t need to look in the mirror to know that they’re almost back to normal. Not that it matters after I lit up the whole exam room like an exploding sun.

  “Well…” Serpint sighs. “Hungry?”

  I scowl up at him. “What? No third degree? No ‘you’re such a liar, Lyra?’ No ‘who the hell are you and why are you here?’”

  “Uh…” he says, rubbing a hand over the stubble of his jaw. “Well… just please tell me you’re not a queen. Lyra? You’re not, right? Because I have enough Cygnian queen problems at the moment and Crux is gonna fucking kill me if you turn out to be a queen.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I can’t be bothered with his trivial problems right now. I just made a complete fool of myself back in that exam room.

  Begged him to fuck me! Holy suns!

  But I couldn’t help it. It’s like… like I was on that inhibitor too long and then the two glow tests this morning kinda set things in motion. My body is in active rejection. Even if I could get the palladium and the xenon it probably won’t even work.

  And what’s the point now anyway?

  He knows.

  “Are you a queen?” he asks again.

  “No,” I say. “No. We only have one queen, for fuck’s sake. And I’m not her.”

  “One?” he asks, like this is confusing. “Only one? Then what’s going on? Who are you running from? Why did you get kicked out?”

  “Just…” I sigh. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? Can we eat? Or something? Or can I take a shower? I just… need to process what to do next.”

  “What do you mean ‘do next’? What’s going on?”

  “What part of ‘tomorrow’ don’t you understand? I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, I do. So you better start explaining or I’m calling Crux and telling him I’ve got a pink princess up here pretending to be… whatever the fuck it was you were pretending to be.”

  “Oh, will you now?”

  “Yeah.” And then he says, “ALCOR, get Crux down here right now. We have a problem,” in the direction of the ceiling.

  But oddly, the AI doesn’t answer.

  “ALCOR!” Serpint tries again.

  And again… nothing.

  “Ha.” I laugh before I can stop myself.

  “Fucking thing. ALCOR!” He yells it this time. But I’m pretty sure AIs at this level can hear just fine when he whispers.

  “He’s ignoring you,” I say. “Because he’s on my side.”

  “Bullshit,” Serpint says. “You don’t have a side. That motherfucker’s priority is the station. Which means he has to answer me!”

  He yells that too.

  But still, the AI ignores him.

  “Any more brilliant threats, genius?” I might gloat a little as I say this.

  “What’s going on? You were on something, weren’t you? Something to stop your glow and change the color of your hair and eyes.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “It is now, princess. Because you’re sitting in my quarters, on my station, and for all I know you’ve got a fucking tracker in your head and the goddamned Cygnian Navy is on their way here to attack us and bring you home.”

  I scoff. “Believe me, no one is coming to save me, Serpint. But thanks for your concern. I can see you’re all torn up about my situation.”

  “What situation? And why wouldn’t they come? You’re one of the important ones. I know that much. We don’t ever get pink princesses here. So who are you, really?”

  “I’m Lyra,” I yell. “And I’m so fucking done with this day! Why can’t I just take a shower, eat something, and go to sleep? I’ve only been on the run for three days and I’ve already had enough. Why can’t you just… be normal?”

  “Normal?” He laughs. “I don’t even know how to answer that. I am normal, you’re the one who got me mixed up in this huge mess.”

  “Well… then just sell me a ship and I’ll be on my way tomorrow. How about that? That work for you?”

  “Sell you a ship?” He just squints at me. “You have credits to buy a ship?”

  I sigh. “Again. None of your business.”

  “Can you fly a ship?”

  “I’m not answering that.”

  “So you can fly a ship,” he says, his voice softer now. Like he’s talking to himself and not me.

  The bot hovers over to him, stopping at his shoulder, and begins to beep out a whole litany of bullshit.

  “What’s he saying?” Serpint asks.

  Luckily for me, Serpint can’t understand him. “He says you should let me take a shower, feed me, and then give me your bedroom so I can sleep. Alone,” I add. Just to make it clear that we won’t be having a repeat of the exam room later tonight.

  The bot begins beeping like crazy and I swear to the seven suns, I just want to slap that thing so hard right now.

  “That’s not what he said.” Then Serpint opens up that air data display thing and pulls up a program that will translate the 700 Series bots. “Say again, bot.”

  Well, fuck. Now I’m really done. Because a tinny, automated AI voice says, “She’s the queen’s niece and she wasn’t kicked out of the Cygnian System.”

  “She wasn’t?” Serpint says. “Then why—”

  But the bot interrupts him. “She escaped from prison. Was tried for treason and found guilty.”

  “Oh-ho-ho,” Serpint says with a guffaw. “Was she now?”

  “That’s not really what happened,” I say, unsure why I’m even telling him that. “He’s just pulling things off the galactic web. And everyone knows that anything people report about Cygnians is just gossip. Nothing escapes from that system.”

  “Except you, apparently.”

  “And her sister,” the bot adds.

  “Would you shut up already?” I hiss.

  “There’s two of you?” Serpint asks, raising his eyebrows. The bot begins to beep and chirp again, but Serpint swipes his hand through the data display and turns the translator off and the annoying robotic voice goes silent.

  “No. Another lie,” I spit.

  But he doesn’t believe me. Because he turns away, rubs a hand over his scratchy jaw and says, “Holy suns. Two of these mouthy little pink minxes.”

  “She’s not pink,” I say.

  Serpint spins towards me and points his finger. “So you did escape with her!”

  I just sigh and close my eyes, wishing I could go back three spins and make better choices. “Can I please just take a shower
now?”

  Serpint thinks for a moment. But I’m pretty sure he’s not wondering if he should allow me to take a shower. “Treason, huh?”

  “I told you, that’s not what happened.”

  “Then what did happen?”

  I can see he’s not going to give up on this so I sigh, like I’m giving in, and formulate a new lie on the fly. “We… got caught.”

  “Doing?”

  “I mean, you have a whole flock of Cygnian swans—”

  “Swans?” he asks.

  “Yeah, that’s what we call princesses at home. If your feeble brain is having trouble keeping up, I’ll use the word ‘princesses,’ better?”

  He points at me. “You’re breathing thin atmo right now, Lyra. Don’t get mouthy on me or I’ll drag you down to Crux, no asshole AI required.”

  “I’m just saying, we get out all the time. You know this because this station is famous for collecting them. It doesn’t take much brain power to figure this out.”

  “So what did you do?”

  I bite my lip.

  “And don’t lie to me. I can totally tell.”

  “Fine,” I say. “I helped someone escape a while back.”

  “Escape? What? Why are people escaping?”

  “We’re a closed system, Serpint. How do you not understand this?”

  “Like… they don’t let anyone leave?”

  “Yes, exactly like that. They don’t let anyone leave. It’s like… well, not like here. You’re not allowed to do anything. You can’t speak your mind or read anything that’s not approved by the monarchy.”

  “It’s a police state? A dictatorship?”

  “Yes.” I sigh. Thank the suns for men who like to fill in the blanks. “Yes. Exactly. And I helped my sister escape because she…”

  “She what?”

  “She got caught sending messages out of the system. And they were going to kill her. So I put her on a ship and sent her away.”

  “And you stayed behind.”

  “Yes.”

  “And got caught.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they found you guilty, so you escaped too.”

  “Yes. I was supposed to meet her—”

  “Where?”

  “Bull Station.”

  “Oh, for sun’s sake. You didn’t go there, did you?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I had to. She was all alone. But I got caught right away and thrown into a cell. Then some dirty old man stole me, froze me, and brought me here. And that’s the whole story, I promise. You know the rest.”

  Please buy it. Please, please, please buy my lie.

  “What were you taking? To stop your glow? And why, for that matter?”

  “Because, as you said, pink princesses don’t turn up much. We’re under guard all the time. But I was in the military—”

  “Fuck you.” He laughs.

  “I was,” I say. And this part is totally true. “So I had access to ships.” I shrug. “And I took one.”

  “Just like that?”

  “No,” I say, thinking up another lie. “It was a rather dicey situation after I was found guilty, but we have a whole network of people on the inside who helped. The military is crawling with liberators. So I got another ship and I cooked up an antagonist for the glow so people wouldn’t know I was pink.”

  “Because…” he prods. “Just say the rest of it, Lyra. I already know you have to be someone important. Tell me who you are.”

  “I’m…” I sigh. I should lie about this but I’ve told so many already, I might as well give him one nugget of truth. “I’m the king’s seventh daughter.”

  “The king. As in the head dude of the whole miserable place?”

  “The very one.”

  “The seventh?” He shrugs. “So what? There are six more important princesses than you. So why’d he care so much?”

  “Because the seventh daughter of the king has to marry the king on her twenty-third birthday.”

  “Your father?” he says, a look of disgust on his face.

  “It’s not as incestuous as it sounds.”

  “Well, that makes it better.”

  “I’m just saying, we’re all genetically engineered, so my DNA is actually seven generations removed from his. But you’re right. That doesn’t make it any better.”

  “Well, fuck.”

  “Now do you understand?”

  He sighs. Long and loud. Then shrugs. “OK.”

  “OK?” I ask. There’s no way he’s gonna just let all this go.

  Is there?

  “Go take a shower and I’ll cook us some dinner.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What should I do, Lyra? Tell me. Because I have no fucking clue.”

  I shrug too. Because there’s nothing left to say. Nothing left to do but stay here with him and see if I can figure another way out of this whole fucking mess. “I guess I’ll take a shower then.”

  I get up and start walking down the hallway, but Serpint calls out, “Uh… hey, Lyra?”

  “Yeah?” I ask looking over my shoulder.

  “So… the queen. Like the one and only queen? She’s your…”

  “No,” I say. “She’s not my mother. She’s the last seventh daughter of the king.”

  But I turn away and walk into the bedroom after that.

  Because he can’t know anything about how this whole thing works.

  Not. One. Thing.

  That is my deepest, darkest secret and I will take it to my grave.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - SERPINT

  “ALCOR!” I hiss in the air after I hear Lyra start the shower.

  “Yes, Serpint.”

  “Did you hear all that?”

  “Yes, Serpint.”

  “What the fuck, man? Like… what the actual fuck is going on?”

  “I think…” But he hesitates. For several seconds. And that is not a good sign. Not good at all. AIs can do millions of calculations in the span of microseconds. They can run scenarios, and make projections, and extrapolate outcomes out for hundreds of years in the span of one full second. So taking three or four seconds to respond means he just ran all that shit and more before he decided to answer me. “I think the sun is about to fuck us in the ass, that’s how screwed we are.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. Because this is just ridiculous. We’re smack in the middle of something huge here. And we have the goddamned one and only Cygnian queen up in the harem cryo center because I stumbled into an opportunity and stole her, cryo-capsule and all, right out from under… well, someone else. Obviously.

  There are only two reasons you find people in a cryo-capsule when they’re not traveling across millions of light years inside a generation-class cruise ship.

  One. They’re sick. The cryo-capsule can also heal. But again, that’s for people in deep space, not on a crowded space station in the sun-forsaken Cetus System. That place had SEAR cannons so it’s definitely got some state-of-the-art medical equipment.

  Or two. They were stolen by someone like me. Which is the correct answer here. No matter what Lyra says, her story doesn’t add up. But I don’t care at the moment. I don’t have room in my head to pick it all apart tonight.

  And she’s not gonna tell me anyway. She doesn’t trust me. Why should she? I’ve kinda been a dick since the moment we met.

  “What should I do?” I ask ALCOR. “Go up and tell all this to Crux?”

  “I think you should make her dinner. Then go to sleep. Tomorrow I’ll have a plan and Booty will be back online.”

  “Oh, shit. I almost forgot about her.” A stab of guilt runs through my heart. I wish she was online now. She’d know which parts of Lyra’s story were true. ALCOR might have thousands years of learning under his belt, but Booty is a tenth-generation quantum AI. Small, and fast, and exists in many states at once. Plus, she’s been through hundreds of gates and interacted with thousands of people and other ships. ALCOR has been stuck here his entire life. And yeah, he’s been connec
ted to the wider web for two decades, but that’s not a replacement for experience.

  Booty has talents ALCOR never will. She knows things and she’s more human than most humanoids. Draden was my brother, Ceres was my sidekick—but Booty…

  Booty is my partner. It’s been me and her against the world for almost a decade. Long before I won Ceres in a poker game down in the lower-level casinos and even though Draden and I started out as partners in the early days, he quit on me before Booty came along.

  She is my world.

  A bounty hunter is nothing without his ship. It’s the kind of bond that almost defies explanation. People assume it’s because they get us out of dicey situations or because their skills in navigating a series of gates in questionable states without detection means you live to steal another spin.

  But that’s not really it.

  It’s so much more than that.

  We are connected. I don’t know how it happened. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s real or just some figment of my imagination. But at this point none of that matters. We just… are.

  “Crux doesn’t need to know this right now,” ALCOR continues. “He’s busy making preparations for the memorial service.”

  Well, fuck. I almost forgot about that too.

  “Valor, Luck, and Jimmy are on their way home now. They should arrive mid-spin tomorrow.”

  My other brothers—who I haven’t seen in many, many spins—are all coming home because I fucked up.

  “It’ll be good to see them.” I sigh.

  “Yes,” ALCOR says. “It will. But tonight you take care of Lyra. She needs it, Serpint. Believe me, she needs a nice, quiet, uneventful night. Because it might be her last.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll have more information tomorrow. We’ll talk then.”

  The air goes still and silent and I know he’s gone. I know he’s gone and he won’t be back. Not tonight.

  I turn to the bot and say, “Go away. We’re done for today.” Because I’m sick of his too-bright bot face and his stupid chirping, which he’s been doing this whole time ALCOR and I were talking.

  His final annoying bleep is something I’ll just assume is goodbye—but he could be telling me to fuck off for all I know—because he leaves after that.