“You don’t seem surprised that one of your own people might have tried to murder you,” Vesper said.
I shrugged again, as though the knowledge didn’t bother me, even though it did. “It’s one of the many hazards of being me.”
“The dark prince of the galaxy,” she murmured.
“Someone’s been watching too many gossipcasts.”
A bit of pink flooded her cheeks. “My roommate loves to follow the Regal gossip. Tivona had a program on this morning, and the gossipcaster was talking about the spring ball before . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Before you did the supremely stupid thing that got you conscripted onto an Imperium ship?”
“It wasn’t stupid,” Vesper said in a defensive tone.
“Then what was it?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. I tried to do the right thing, but I also tried to make money doing it, mostly so I could run if things got dangerous. I tried to be noble and selfish at the same time, and I failed miserably at both.”
I glanced at the blaster pieces strewn all over the counter and thought about how easily she’d taken them apart, especially the Kent models. “You worked for Kent Corp. In the R&D lab, right?”
Vesper jerked back, clearly surprised, but then her features settled into that stubborn look I was coming to know all too well. “Why do you care? If you have your way, I’ll never get off this ship alive. So what does it matter where I worked or what I did?”
“Just making conversation. It helps to pass the time.”
She snorted. “Please. People like you never just make conversation, and I doubt you care anything about passing the time either. You’re trying to pump me for information.”
“Wow, you must be a truly powerful seer to come up with such a smart deduction.”
Her hot glare zeroed in on me again, and a genuine laugh escaped from my lips. Which, of course, only pissed her off more.
She was right. I never just made conversation with anyone, but Vesper Quill was far more intelligent, witty, and entertaining company than most. It was odd and a bit . . . refreshing to talk to someone who wasn’t afraid of me or planning to use me in some way. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to speak to someone without worrying about their true agenda, since both of ours were crystal-clear—kill the other person before they killed us.
Suddenly, a siren blared to life. “Warning, warning,” the same mechanized female voice from the medtable rang out. “Ship approaching. Warning, warning, ship approaching . . .”
Vesper scrambled to her feet, and I did the same. We both hurried over and peered out the observation windows on our respective sides of the ship. In the distance, a blitzer zoomed in our direction, closing fast.
“Fuck,” Vesper muttered. “That’s a Kent Corp ship. How did they even track me here . . .”
Her voice trailed off. She dug into the pocket on the front of her coveralls and yanked out the bloodstained husher I had cut out of her arm.
“Dammit!” she snarled.
She dropped the husher on the floor and stomped it to pieces. Too little, too late, although I could appreciate her angry sentiment.
“Friends of yours?” I drawled.
“They’re here to interrogate and torture me—before they murder me.”
“Ah, so you’re a thief. You stole something from the Kents, and now they want it back.”
“Technically, I didn’t steal anything, since I had access to all the files,” she replied. “But yes, Rowena Kent most definitely wants me dead.”
Vesper checked the blaster, her fingers flying over her odd creation as if she could will it to work just by touching every single part of it. Maybe she could if her psion power was more tactile then visually based. When she was satisfied, Vesper peered out the window at the other blitzer again.
“That’s an RK blitzer, and it’s already too close to outrun, especially with our thrusters threatening to conk out again at any moment,” she muttered, although I got the impression she was talking more to herself than to me. “Most RK blitzers can hold a crew of at least five. Oh, who am I kidding? There’s no crew on board, just Kent Corp mercenaries.”
She curled her finger around the trigger of her improvised blaster. “I can kill them. I can kill five mercenaries. I killed more people than that on the lava field . . .”
Vesper kept muttering similar sentiments, psyching herself up, while the other blitzer zoomed closer and closer. Whoever was on that ship was determined to catch up to this one, and if they found me locked in the cargo bay, well, I wasn’t sure what they would do. I might persuade the mercs to free me—for a hefty price—or they might decide to turn me over to Rowena Kent.
Either way, someone was going to die, and it wasn’t going to be me.
“Let me out of here,” I said, interrupting Vesper’s monologue. “I have no alliance with the Kents. I could easily dispatch whatever mercs they’ve sent after you.”
“And then kill me the second you get the chance? How stupid do you think I am?” Vesper scoffed and flicked her fingers at me, dismissing my offer.
She was right. I would still do whatever it took to break the bond between us. Still, something about her dismissive motions reminded me of . . . someone, although I couldn’t quite remember who.
We fell silent, watching as the other blitzer glided into position alongside our ship.
“Docking initiated,” the female voice intoned.
Vesper cursed again, but she took up a position in front of the boarding doors, her jaw clenched, her blaster up and ready, and her finger curled around the trigger as she waited for the Kent mercs to board the ship.
CHAPTER TEN
VESPER
I tightened my grip on the blaster and faced the docking doors. Of course, the doors were on my side of the ship. If the doors had been in the cargo bay where Kyrion was, then I could have gone through with my original plan to suck all the oxygen out of that part of the ship and suffocate him, along with the mercenaries. Although knowing my luck, the Kent mercenaries had the same O2 enhancement as I did and wouldn’t be so easily dispatched.
I silently cursed this latest bit of bad luck, even as I wondered if this would be the thing that finally killed me. Either way, there was no place to hide, so I had no choice but to face the mercenaries and hope that I could kill them before they captured me.
On the other side of the glass, Kyrion Caldaren grabbed his helmet, which was sitting next to those protein bars and bottles of water he had mocked and tempted me with earlier. On the bright side, the mercenaries murdering me would be a much quicker way to die than by dehydration, although the torture they would inflict would be far more painful.
Kyrion leaned against a counter, holding his helmet in his hand, completely calm and relaxed. “Last chance,” he called out. “I could kill them all in less than a minute.”
He was actually trying to blackmail me into freeing him, just so he could turn around and kill me himself. Arrogant jackass.
A thin red seam appeared in the center of the boarding doors, and the acrid stench of melting metal filled the air. The mercenaries were using a laser torch to cut through the doors.