Release (3 page)

No!

“Disengaging the tractor beam has been taken as failure to cooperate,” said the ship’s comm. “You are now classified as evading arrest and measures will be taken—”

“Oh, shut up,” said the man, flipping off the ship’s comm. He hit some keys on the console, and Ariana recognized the familiar whir of the hyperdrive warming up.

“No,” she said out loud. “You can’t just get away.”

“Watch me, sweetheart.”

Ariana got up out of her seat and flung her body onto the man’s back. She began scratching at his face as hard as she could.

The man yelled and tried to shake her off.

Ariana clung harder, digging her nails in.

The man reached back and ripped one of her arms away from his face. He yanked her off his back as easily as if she were an annoying child. Putting her in front of him, he seized her by the shoulders and propelled her back into her seat. She was pleased to see that his face was bleeding.

She was less pleased to see that he was really mad.

He let go of her for a second, and she cowered, cringing against the blow she was sure was coming.

But instead he wrapped the seat belt around her shoulders. It was tight. He wound the belt around her seat two more times, binding her torso to the seat and her arms against her sides. Then he fastened the belt on the back of the seat, out of her reach.

Swearing, he returned to the console.

The ship started to shake again. Good! They must have them back in the tractor beam.

The man made two strokes on the console and the shaking stopped. He
was
going to get away.

The man kept typing on the console and the hyperdrive whirred to life. He was going to jump to hyperspace and get away from the police. And he was taking her with him!

Chapter Three

Ariana was crying. She didn’t mean to cry, not exactly, but everything was pretty much horrible now. She hadn’t been able to get the man arrested. She hadn’t been able to save Risciter. And to make matters worse, now she was tied up and on the ship with this murderer and thief. She had no idea where they were going. She was terrified. She had no idea what to do now.

They were in hyperspace again. The man was hunched over the console. Blood was streaming down his face from the places she’d gouged him with her fingernails. And she was trying to cry as quietly as she could.

“Stop crying,” said the man, annoyed.

She couldn’t. She didn’t say anything.

“This is all your fault, anyway. I was trying to get rid of you. I was trying to drop you off someplace nice, where you’d be well taken care of. You had to screw it up by trying to call the police. Trust me, I don’t want you here any more than you want to be here.”

That wasn’t exactly comforting.

“Seriously, sweetheart. Can you stop the waterworks, already?”

“Don’t call me sweetheart.” Ariana hiccupped, but being angry at the man made it a little easier to stop her tears.

“What do you want me to call you?”

“You can call me Miss Gilit. That’s my name.”

The man sneered at her. “That’s right. Miss Ariana Gilit, daughter of the Duke of Wendo. I’ve seen pictures of you on the nets. I knew Risciter was courting you. Why a woman who could have any man in the galaxy would be wasting your time on Risciter is beyond me.”

Ariana sat up primly in her seat as best she could through the belts that bound her. “It’s a very good match. My father thinks so.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Right. A good match.”

“It is,” said Ariana. “And anyway, I don’t see how it’s any of your business.” She sniffled. She was still frightened, but telling this man off made her feel a bit more in control of herself. “What are you going to do with me?” She hoped he wasn’t going to kill her. She was probably in the way of his plans now, and maybe he’d simply point a blaster at her and... She shuddered.

The man stroked his chin. “Well, I have no idea. The ship’s headed out of the Evon Sector to the planet Risciter was heading to. It’s a colony planet. It’s not like the places you’re used to, but there will be a town, and they’ll have a public comm you can use to contact your family. I guess I’ll just let you go there.”

Ariana swallowed. A colony planet? She’d grown up hearing horror stories about the barbarians outside the Evon Sector. But she guessed it was better than being held prisoner by this man, and she was glad he wasn’t going to kill her.

The terror must have shown on her face, because the man said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do. Maybe you should be glad I didn’t kick your ass out of the ship before I took off on Hallon. You’d be dead now, sucked into space.”

Dead. She shrank into her seat. “Don’t kill me. Please. Mr.... I don’t know your name, but please don’t kill me.”

The man looked even more annoyed. “My name’s Keirth. Keirth Transman. And I’m not going to kill you. I’m not a killer.”

“You’re going to kill Risciter aren’t you?”

“That’s different. Risciter...” Keirth sighed. “It’s not the same. He deserves it.”

“He doesn’t deserve it. He’s done nothing wrong. He’s a good man. I know him.”

Keirth shook his head. “No, see that’s the thing. You don’t know him. You don’t know a thing about him.” He got up and knelt behind her chair, unfastening the belts. “Now, if I untie you, are you going to start scratching my face up again?”

“No,” she said quietly.

He began unwinding the belts. “I’m sorry about all of this, okay? I thought I had a good plan. Apparently, I didn’t. It’s too late to back out now, so...” He pulled the belt completely off her body, freeing her. “I don’t make a practice of running around kidnapping women in the nobility. This isn’t... I’m not going to hurt you.”

Ariana massaged her arms, glad to have them free.

Keirth looked around the bridge. “Well, we’re going to be in hyperspace for about six hours. You got anything to eat on this boat?”

* * *

Though Miss Ariana Gilit knew where the kitchen was on the ship, she was a complete idiot about preparing any kind of food, so Keirth searched through the packets of dehydrated provisions and found some soup. He added water to it and put it in the heating unit to boil.

Ariana sat at the table in the kitchen, fidgeting. “When we travel in the ship, usually the servants eat in the kitchen. I’ve always eaten in the dining room.”

“Guess you’ll get the chance to see what it’s like to be a servant, then,” Keirth said. He didn’t know what to think this of this woman. One second, she was standing up to him, the next, she was sobbing. In between all that, she seemed like a spoiled, sheltered little girl. Which, Keirth supposed, she was. He’d spent a bit of his life working for the nobility in various capacities. When he’d discovered Risciter was planning to go back to Hallon for the summer season, Keirth had gotten a job driving the duke of Hallon’s speeder in an attempt to get close to Risciter.

The night before last, he’d been able to finagle his way into driving Risciter home from a party. He’d tried to shoot Risciter then, but he’d been interrupted by some message from the butler where he was employed, telling him that someone was looking for him. Who would be looking for Keirth Transman? He was a nobody. He was a drifter. For seven years, he’d been driven by only one mission. To find the Duke of Risciter and kill him.

Anyway, the whole thing had been botched at that moment. While he was distracted, Risciter had managed to get away.

When Keirth found out Risciter was planning to leave the planet the next day, he’d pursued him immediately, intending to do it then. But that hadn’t gone very well either.

It wasn’t enough to simply shoot Risciter. Keirth needed Risciter to understand why Keirth was doing it. He needed to look into Risciter’s eyes and have Risciter understand how vile he was. If he didn’t accomplish that, killing Risciter was meaningless.

But once it was done, it would be the most meaningful thing that Keirth had done with his life. Risciter was untouchable, due to his noble status. He was a man who thought he could do whatever he wanted. The law might let Risciter get away with it, but Keirth wouldn’t.

Of course, with the way things were going, it was probably going to be the only meaningful thing that Keirth had done with his life. This girl had seen him. She knew who he was. When he got rid of her, she’d undoubtedly have the authorities hunting him down right away. And they’d know where he was too. He’d have to take care of Risciter as quickly as he possibly could. Then, if they caught him, it wouldn’t matter anymore. Because Keirth would have done what he needed to do.

The heating unit beeped, and Keirth took the containers of soup out. He handed one to Ariana and kept the other for himself. After scrounging up a few spoons from a drawer, he sat down with her to eat the soup. It was hot. He saw her burn her lip on it and jump, startled.

After that, they sat together silently, blowing on spoonfuls of the soup. When Keirth got a chance to taste it, he was pleasantly surprised. For rehydrated food, it was actually quite tasty. Nicely seasoned. He guessed the nobility got the best of everything, even space food.

“Well,” said Ariana, “if you aren’t usually a kidnapper and a thief, what do you do with yourself normally?”

“Why?” he asked, suspicious. “You want to make sure you’ve got a nice profile of me to share with the police when you get free and turn me in?”

“No. I’m only trying to make polite dinner conversation. I happen to be a civilized daughter of the peerage. It’s what I’m good at.”

Keirth laughed. “Being polite is what you’re good at?”

She looked flustered. “I do happen to be more pleasant generally when I’m not being forced to do things at gunpoint or tied up.”

Keirth slurped some of his soup. “I’ll take your word for it, sweetheart.”

“I have repeatedly asked you not to call me that, and you repeatedly ignore me.”

Keirth shrugged.

“You really are awful.” Ariana looked into her soup, and Keirth got the impression she might start crying again.

He didn’t like making her cry. Sure, she was annoying as hell, bossy, and full of herself, but she hadn’t asked to be in this situation. He had sort of kidnapped her. Overall, making women cry was not something Keirth aspired to. He hadn’t had a lot of time for women in his life. Spending his life bent on revenge was sort of an all-consuming passion. And he wasn’t the kind of man who’d take his pleasure with a woman and abandon her. He’d seen too much of that growing up, and it made him physically ill. Overall, though, it meant that he really hadn’t spent much time with women at all. Not since he’d lived with his mother, anyway. He peered at Ariana and tried to imagine she was his mother. It was pretty hard to do, considering the two women had precisely nothing in common. Still, if his mother had been accidentally kidnapped, he’d want the kidnapper to treat her with respect. So Keirth would try. She’d wanted polite dinner conversation, had she? He’d do his best. “I, um, don’t really have a set profession. I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve flown space ships. I’ve worked in factories. I’ve loaded product. Most recently, I was a driver for the duke of Hallon.”

Ariana pointed at him with her spoon. “I
knew
I’d seen you before.” She turned back to her soup, running her spoon through the liquid as if she was searching for something to say inside her bowl. “So you most recently lived on Hallon, then?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Where did you grow up?”

“All over,” he said. “My mother traveled to different planets in the sector, looking for work. We’d settle wherever she could find something steady.”

She nodded. “And what did she do for work?”

Keirth shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about that.” He was fairly sure that announcing his mother’s occupation as a prostitute didn’t qualify as good dinner conversation. He should change the subject. Certainly Ariana would want to talk about herself. “What about you? Where did you grow up?”

“On Wendo, of course,” said Ariana. “We did some traveling when I was a girl, but we’ve traveled more now that my sister and I are both of age and actively looking for husbands. One must go where society dictates, after all.”

Keirth nodded. He knew that some people followed the nobility on the nets like hawks, wanting to know where they were and what planet was fashionable that season. To him, it all seemed absolutely ridiculous. They had too much time on their hands and too much money to play with. But he didn’t suppose saying that aloud was good dinner conversation either. He was beginning to appreciate why people in the nobility had to practice this kind of thing. “Do you like Wendo? Were you happy there?” That was safe, wasn’t it?

“Oh, absolutely,” she said. “It’s a small planet though, and the seasons are short. It’s nice getting back to spring quicker than everyone else, I guess, but there’s nothing like a long, extended summer on Risciter.”

And then they were both quiet, because she’d said the name of the duke, even though she’d meant the planet. Risciter was a big planet, and the duke was a sorry excuse for a human being. So, there they were again.

Ariana put down her spoon. “What do you have against him, anyway?”

“He’s a murderer,” said Keirth.

Ariana made a face. “He is
not
.”

Keirth rolled his eyes. “Maybe this conversation idea wasn’t a great one. Let’s just eat, okay?”

* * *

Ariana opened one eye. Her arms were flung over her head. All she could see was Keirth, standing over her in the bridge of the ship.

“We’re safe on the ground,” he said, glaring at her in disgust.

She lowered her arms and looked around, taking in the fact that they were indeed safe. Nothing inside the bridge seemed to be damaged. The visual was on, and outside, she could see the trunks of trees. They’d come down right in the middle of a forest, crashing and smashing down branches everywhere. It had been terrifying. “Don’t they have spacedocks in the colonies?”

“Sure, they do,” said Keirth. “And if you want your ship stolen or raided for parts, you absolutely land it there and leave it.”