[Baylor]

  This station was supposed to be an easy one.

  Christy couldn’t find any market for the remaining cargo, so he just had to get the fees authorized and meet their contact. Someone Christy knew from her days as a negotiator. It didn’t even surprise him that she knew someone here. With as much work as she had done, she probably knew someone at every station they had stopped at.

  ‘Except that frontier station. That one may as well have been empty for all the good we got out of it.’

  Stopping and talking to the sailors looking for a bunk and a paycheck, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if they could fill any other roles. Big ships needed big crews after all.

  ‘It’s like someone is waiting at every station now. How much money is being poured into this hunt?’

  Getting locked in a room had been unexpected. He could admit it had been his fault. The War-beasts and relative safety of the ship had dulled his senses. He hadn’t considered that they may hack an active station to trap him. Things like that normally made uninvolved parties take notice.

  ‘I guess not knowing who is involved doesn’t help with that.’

  He knew it would be dangerous to bring the young Canirean with him. She would get marked as a potential target eventually. He felt terrible that it had happened this soon. That he had led her directly into the trap.

  He had tried the door, obviously. He knew it wouldn’t work, but not testing everything was suicidal. It took less than an hour. His frantic search around the room, attempting to find any path forward, had been brutally interrupted by reality slapping him in the face.

  ‘How in the stars did a War-beast hack a door panel!?’

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  He had seen them get through doors they shouldn’t have. Seen them circumvent or break things that had been placed in their way. He had even seen them take paths no one had even considered were paths.

  He had never once seen them simply open a locked door.

  He knew it was locked. He had made sure.

  “Where did you find a book Kitty?”

  He ignored the unimportant question… conversation?... between the two females and rushed to leave the room before something else impossible happened.

  ‘Next thing I know, people will start phasing through walls.’

  Once in the hallway, he used all his senses to try and figure out where they would get ambushed from.

  “Kitty, if it isn’t yours you need to trade for it!”

  “Find it. Kitty’s now. Only trade Moose.”

  He grimaced at the unhurried, and very unconcerned, talk behind him. The girl might be far more suited to stressful situations than Christy, but there was a point where you could be too relaxed.

  His ears picked up a noise.

  “You need to go. Have it take you back to the ship but go that way. Don’t get caught and don’t stop.”

  He barked the directions back to the girl while pointing away from the noise. He hoped it was the right noise he was pointing them away from, but she had plenty of protection if not.

  He doubted any station could handle a War-beast like this one.

  Rather than wait to get questioned or some other unimportant thing that might get them in trouble, he ran towards the earlier noise. He didn’t have the data chip any longer. If he got caught, he was sure that the mission would get finished at the very least.

  ‘With Christy on that ship, it would probably take the entire galactic military to hold me. I just hope they want to keep me alive that long.’

  He might have some leverage, but everyone had a limit.

  He was sure he would be a test for some.

  After he reached the first corner he had to stop and get his bearings, but he found his noise around the second. A pair of widened eyes told him a great deal.

  “How did you escape!? That room was deadened!”

  “Good thing I didn’t bring a computer then.”

  His speed saw his would-be captor pinned to the wall. A quick check made sure there were no surprises on their person. He might have a significant edge in physical combat, but a laser to the gut would even that right out.

  “I don’t get much chance to talk like this you know.”

  He made sure to emphasize the lack of options the captor now enjoyed.

  “I’m sure you have goons coming, but we are going to chat until they show up.”

  It was about time he got some answers.