“Entering carriage 95,” a man said, speaking into his cube.
Aly poked his head up and saw he was wearing the uniform of a Tasinn. He couldn’t believe it. The Tasinn were showing up more and more now, in places they weren’t meant to be—like on Derkatz, and now here on the zeppelin. He’d been worried a droid would find them, but this was way worse.
As the girl yanked him back down, he accidentally nudged a piece of equipment. It made a sound as it scratched across the floor.
“Who’s there?” the man called out.
Aly’s body tensed, and for whatever reason he and the girl reached for each other at the same time. Could he trust her? She’d grabbed him to hide, hadn’t she? They were so close, her tangled hair had somehow made it into his mouth. Thank god she didn’t smell like fake flowers or extinct fruits or else he’d be sneezing his face off. Her head just smelled like a head.
Could she hear his heart beating? Her breath was hot on his neck. The guard’s bootsteps came closer.
Aly had slung one arm protectively around her and wished to god he still had his hammer. He scanned the floor for anything he could use. What were they going to do? Crouch here spooning each other until the guard found them? Because at this rate he would find them.
Crunch. Aly heard the Tasinn curse softly as something crackled underfoot. Aly’s blood froze. He’d left his supplies out, just scattered across the blanket for anyone to see, hoping to tempt the thief—the girl—into revealing herself. He heard the rustle of fabric as the Tasinn moved into a crouch, saw the beam of a light sweep across a sad collection of spare parts he’d stripped from the machines. The guard was less than five feet away, separated from them by only a thin arrangement of extra sheet metal.
They would have to fight. There was no other choice. Slowly, as quietly as he could, he crept forward . . .
Then, suddenly, the guard touched his cube. “Hold on, 401, let me transfer you to a holo.” He pulled a small handheld holo from his pocket. “Go ahead, 401.”
The device projected a hologram of another guard wearing the same army outfit with the red sash. “They’ve found the freight jumper. Male, six foot, medium build, a Vodhead—crazy tattoos and all. Traveling with a Marked girl.”
“I’m in cargo,” he said, poking through Aly’s stuff with the tip of his baton. “Looks like they’ve been living down here too.”
“Leave it. We’re landing in fifteen, and we’ll need all hands on deck. Just heard Nero’s skipping town early and he’s got a whole party with him.”
“Yeah, there were about nine million staff requests to be put on his security detail . . . everyone is trying to meet him.”
The Tasinn stood up and retreated, moving back through cargo the way he’d come. Aly didn’t realize he’d stopped breathing until the hiss of the mechanized doors told him he was safe—didn’t realize, either, how tightly he’d been holding the girl until she moved away from him.
“Whoa,” the girl muttered. She stood up, and Aly did too. Pavel lit up tentatively, as if afraid to fully power on, so she was cast in low blue light.
“They’ll be back,” he said. He’d have to disembark earlier than he wanted and find some other way to Portiis. He asked himself for the thousandth time what Vin had expected him to do with his crappy half-information, about a maybe-lost princess and some random contact in the United Planets.
Then again, he couldn’t stay on the zeppelin, especially if Nero was sharing his airspace. Since his cube was off, Aly’d been missing most of the news—he wasn’t all that interested in seeing a MURDERER or WANTED label slapped over a bad picture of his face—but he’d picked up that Regent Seotra had up and disappeared. “Vanished,” the holos said. More like assassinated, Aly figured.
Now Nero was practically in charge, making a big show about how Kalusians—the good guys they were—had tried diplomacy. Now it was time to take action.
Take back what’s ours had become the rallying cry of Nero’s rabid supporters.
It was a veiled call for blood. Aly’s blood, specifically, as well as the blood of anyone who supported Fontisian or Wraetian calls for peace. Aly guessed people were fed up and didn’t need a whole lot of convincing. All Nero had to do was just remind them how horrible their lives were and point a finger on the sly. See who they blamed then. It helped Nero’s case that he looked the way he did. A jaw that cut glass, a slick-looking haircut, a permanent smile on his face that made people go weak in the knees.