Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

In the cool twilight settling over Sang’s starport, Connor trailed Selen back to Lucky Sevens. He kept a respectful distance, trying not to listen in on her call while also listening in on her call. He was her second. These job opportunities meant the difference between the team—his team—staying together or falling apart.

That was how he had to look at it. Losing Ibrahim and Mikael was devastating. Losing Yemi on top of that?

The cool breeze grew colder. They couldn’t survive losing a third.

Crew and laborers moving below the parked starships that lined the tarmac stopped and turned their attention to Selen.

She paid them no head, proceeding at a fast walk, head down and shoulders hunched.

Red embers drew Connor’s attention to a group of laborers moving around the landing gear of a weathered starship. Maintenance lights flickered, then grew bright. He waved, and the men blew foul-smelling smoke toward him.

Connor tried to laugh but ended up coughing.

And he stayed on Selen’s tail, still listening over the rising chatter and the clank and clatter of tools.

Some distance ahead, Yemi strolled toward their ship with quiet confidence.

Did he trust that they would land a job before ten minutes—four now—passed?

Words hung in the air, even if Selen tried to keep the call private. “We’ll deliver results. You want nothing but genitals, we’ll give you that.”

So, she was talking with Ms. Lenina, the psychotic heartbreak woman.

Selen’s head came up, and her voice caught. “Any price. We need this.”

That sounded bad. Connor wanted to put a hand on her shoulder and reassure her, but it was too late.

She scraped to a stop and glared at the phone. “I can’t—”

He stopped at her side, eyes on his stopwatch. Less than four minutes now.

Selen groaned. “I cut her a deal no one else could match.”

“Still turned us down?” Us sounded better than you, especially since Ms. Lenina had specifically cited him as a problem.

That was the unspoken message Selen was sending.

My fault, Connor realized. And it was.

Selen looked ready to throw her computer against the tarmac. “She said she still had to think about it. I think she’s getting cold feet.”

“What about Puget?”

After a sigh, Selen stuffed her computer back into her pocket and resumed her walking. “He won’t even take my call.”

Yemi now stood at the bottom of the Lucky Sevens ramp, chatting with Vicente. The big man let out a booming laugh and seemed ready to crush the smaller mechanic in a bear hug.

Connor tried to hide the stopwatch app. “We’ve got two minutes and change.”

“You’re the only one keeping track of the time.” The way Selen slowed and kept her eyes locked on Yemi said that she knew better.

“I can call Toshiko.”

“Already got a fallback plan, huh?” Selen’s lips trembled. She seemed caught between a scowl and crying. “Tired of me?”

“I mean that Toshiko could look into this Mosiah guy.”

“I told you no.”

“A background check. She can just see how much coincidence there is that he happened to be at the rental place when we arrived.”

Selen settled on a frustrated scowl. “Fine.”

Except it wasn’t fine. Every word, every action was a painful reminder that he was the one who’d created this situation.

Connor hoped that the connection Toshiko had given him when she’d let him into her system to review the job offers was legitimate. Someone with her skills could fake so much, laying down false breadcrumb trails that could lead even expert computer people into bad conclusions.

She picked up, and instead of the open hostility she’d shown to him most of their time down in Winter, she actually looked happy. “Hello?”

“I need another favor from you. Please?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“I’m broke.”

“I know. I’ve got some ideas.”

“So do I. Lots of them. Right now, though, I’m in a spot. Time’s running out.”

“I could’ve told you that. You need to quit that job and come back to me.”

Connor hadn’t quite expected anything so brazen. And the way Selen’s face took on more color in the lights of the nearby ships…

She’d heard.

“Um.” He turned away a little. “I’m committed right now.”

“You were committed before you ran off to fight in your little war. Things change.”

Regret ate at him: the river…the sunlight…Toshiko in her bathing suit…

They had been so happy. Why had he screwed that up? What had it gained?

But he had made decisions, and he owed Selen. “Could you look someone up for me?”

Toshiko’s eyes dropped away. “No one ever took your place.”

It was like a kick to the solar plexus. Connor tried to breathe. “H-his name is Mosiah…” Had he ever heard the man’s last name?

Selen yanked her pocket computer out. “Young. Mosiah Young. I’ll call him. You happy now?”

Toshiko harrumphed. “Did she just yell at you?”

Connor waited until Selen had stormed closer to the Lucky Sevens and was out of earshot. “I—I think she changed her mind. Maybe. We’re under a lot of stress. Things are falling apart.”

“I think you’re sort of forgetting the more important part? Assassins?”

“I didn’t forget. They aren’t coming after me here. But, um, yeah. That’s the root of it. My bounty…”

“It’s all over the Net. Five million.”

“How long…?”

“How long before you have an army of desperadoes coming up into Sang to hunt your hide down for that bounty?”

“Yeah.”

Toshiko’s head came up. Tears welled in her eyes. “I can protect you, you know.”

“No one can protect me. I made a bad decision.” Was that bad decision joining Wentz’s cause, or was the bad decision surviving the final slaughter as Wentz had asked—ordered?

“You have to be the one to survive. You have to tell everyone what happened here.” That had been Wentz’s last order to Connor.

And now Selen had brought him straight into the devil’s den.

Toshiko wiped a tear away. “It’s never too late. I feel too much for you to give up.”

He didn’t deserve that sort of love. “If I ever can, I’ll come back to you. I promise.”

“You better, Connor. In all the universe, there isn’t anyone else like you. I wish you understood that.”

Yemi cocked his head as Selen stomped up the ramp, pocket computer pressed to an ear. Then the mechanic looked at Connor, arms out and palms forward in a questioning gesture.

Their ten minutes was up.

Connor pressed his fingertip to his lips, kissed it, then pressed it against the image of Toshiko. “I’ll call you.”

But when he disconnected, he wondered if he’d live long enough to do that.