Chapter 11

Before they left town the next morning, they stopped by the sheriff’s office to check on her car. Having seen the smoking wreck, Vaughn knew there would be nothing to salvage or even scavenge, but she shrugged helplessly when she made her appeal to Dejo. “It’s all I had, so…”

He only nodded silently.

At the sheriff’s office, though, the front desk attendant had no record of the car or a fire.

“Deputy Henson was supposed to leave a message where it would be towed and when I could get it back,” Vaughn told the older woman. Not that there’d be anything to get back.

“I’m sorry, hon. Deputy Henson said he wouldn’t be back until tonight. But I can tell you, the only place they’d take a wreck is to Bob’s Towing & Garage. And Bob is my husband—Sunset Falls is a small world, I know—but he didn’t mention anything.” She pursed her plum-tinted lips. “Maybe the deputy just hasn’t finished the paperwork yet.” She glanced around then leaned forward and continued in a confidential whisper, “Might have more luck asking the sheriff direct. Deputy Henson…has a bit of a sore spot with the ladies. Sunset Falls gets more than its share, I think, of pretty girls such as yourself, but they all seem to leave with more handsome fellas.” She cast a look at Dejo—who was studying the county map posted on the wall—that was both apologetic and appreciative. “Got some young men in town who take it a bit amiss.”

Vaughn flattened her hand on the counter as if she could disperse the slow boil in her blood. “Not something they get to decide for the ladies.”

“Oh, don’t I know it, but still.” The clerk shook her head. “Feelings being what they are, maybe it’ll go better now that the fancy resort is closed down. Keep things quiet and respectable around here, if you know what I mean.”

Maybe once Vaughn had known all about quiet and respectable, even believed it herself like the deputy upholding the law for everyone else. But her worldview—worldsview—had since expanded.

As she and Dejo slipped through town to the outskirts and struck out across country to where the Onoffon was concealed, he glanced at her, his brown eyes half narrowed against the hazy morning sun. “Anything you need I probably have in ships stores.”

“You have an extra car?” She knew she was being bitchy but couldn’t stop herself. “Another one of my dad’s Purple Hearts? Or wait, a copy of my sister?”

He was silent for several steps.

She stomped to a halt and spun to face him. “Larf it, Dejo. I don’t mean to take it out on you. Hell, I wouldn’t’ve even gotten a real shower except you have better Earth credit than I do. None of this is your fault or has anything to do with you.”

Despite her apology, his expression was fixed, his chin set slightly askew. “It does have something to do with me,” he said coolly. “I said I’d share whatever data I found on your sister. But you’re right. I can’t help you with the rest.”

“Dejo…” When he wheeled to walk on, she grabbed his hand, setting her heels hard so she could spin him back with her body weight.

But only because he sort of let her.

“Vaughn.” He looked down his straight, sharp nose at her. A slight, green flush of anger colored his pale cheekbones. “I understand there’s nothing between us except the data retrieval and one night of mostly illusion.”

Ouch. She deserved that. And maybe he was right to let the illusions fade.

After all, the Intergalactic Dating Agency had failed.

At the Onoffon, he stalked away from her toward the back area which contained what she now knew was data gel, but more compact than what they’d seen at the compound.

She followed him, curious. “Are you just going to, like, puke it up again?”

He glowered at her, which she took to be a no, and removed a microwire like he’d connected between his tablet and the drones. If he stuck that up his nose into his brain or something…

Instead he linked the wire to one of the gel tanks and then to a small net of electrode leads that he placed over his head.

Without looking at her, he said, “This is going to take a while. I don’t have any hearts, purple or other colored, in my stores, but you’re welcome to whatever else fills your needs. I will require quiet and isolation to complete the download, but if I find news of your sister, I’ll contact you at once.”

Oh yeah, he was pissed at her, judging by that stilted blow-off. But he couldn’t understand. He had everything he needed: his mission successfully completed, his data to sell to the highest bidder, his spaceship to take him away from everything.

She had…nothing.

She stalked to the galley to steal some of his coffee. Taking her cup to the cockpit, she sank into the pliant foam seat, the only other place to sit being his bed.

Sex with an alien. This was what she’d come to: breaking and entering, burglary, and an extraterrestrial one-night stand. So much for any self-delusion about her own high moral character.

But once the steady, soothing heat and caffeine of the really good coffee kicked in, she decided she was being melodramatic. The vast universe might not care what she was doing or if she was doing it for the right reasons, but she cared. And she was part of her universe, even if she hadn’t really appreciated that before now.

As if sensing her determination to be a good galactic citizen, the star map she’d noticed her first time in the cockpit winked temptingly. She reached out a finger as she’d seen Dejo do and spun it. Like a toy, it whirled and blinked. She pinched her fingers together and then splayed them outward. The map zoomed inward in response, focusing on one system. She tried to scroll over but made her gesture too big and accidentally skipped over a few galaxies. Whoops. Such a big place, with so much to know. No wonder Dejo could afford a private spaceship with just his data recovery. She had never been anything more than a B student (and occasional C, much to her father’s annoyance). The universe wouldn’t be any more interested in having her than her country was in having her serve anymore.

After idly poking around the universe, she said, “Earth.” Damn, what did the rest of the universe call her world? But the map shrank then reformed as the familiar blue-white marble she’d always seen.

To her surprise, her throat tightened, the same as it did when she had a whisky and a glimpse of the Stars and Stripes. She might not have appreciated it, but she was part of something bigger.

Then she whispered, “Enion.” The map zoomed, giving her vertigo for a second, before focusing on a red-hued planet.

“Enion,” the computer intoned. “Homeworld of the hivre. Translation: Red Mud.”

She snorted. As snide as he’d been about calling her planet Dirt, his was called Mud.

The computer droned on with statistics about main cities, key exports, a civil war between two continents currently at a stalemate. Well, now she knew even advanced worlds still needed soldiers and law enforcement. The screen flashed images of the planet and its inhabitants. The dominant species, the computer claimed, was the hivres, ruled over by the vixas. The harpies looked like a women’s competitive bodybuilding team had decided to dress as ostriches: simultaneously comical and yet menacing, with extravagant feathers mostly covering heavy, powerful bodies. Their brilliant yellow eyes glittered above hard hooked beaks.

“Tell me about iomales,” Vaughn asked.

“Translates to ‘wasted wind’,” the computer said. “Subject of a council injunction protesting genocide by selective attrition, but system representatives countered with a claim citing precedent that prioritizes local spheres of influence. Transgalactic legal experts disagree on jurisdiction—”

“Stop.” She already knew how authorities could debate endlessly while victims suffered. She’d joined the Guard with the idea that action was more important than words or numbers.

And maybe it was totally stalkery, but… “Dejo Jinn, captain of the Onoffon.”

An annotated image of the ship’s registry popped up, along with a 3D image of its captain, looking particularly cool and impervious in his black ships fatigues. He wasn’t smiling.

Barely listening to the computer, she reached out to touch his face.

The recitation cut out, fading the cockpit into quiet darkness, leaving only the blinking lights of the ship’s internal diagnostics to glimmer like stars within reach.

She hadn’t meant to turn off the map, but what could it tell her that she didn’t already know?

That even though they had a common objective at the moment, a universe still separated them.

Wanting to leave that thought behind, she returned to the galley to refill her cup of coffee. She hesitated, then poured into the second cup too and padded back to the ship’s data center. She peeked in, ready with her peace offering, but not wanting to interrupt.

Dejo was slumped on the floor, eyes closed, face blanched an alarming shade of pale jade, as if his skin had gone translucent to reveal his alien blood. Like he was downloading himself into the rapidly blinking gel in the tank above his head.

“Shit.” She thumped the cups down on the decking and knelt beside him. “Dejo? Hey.” She patted his cheek lightly, careful to avoid the electrode lead at his temple.

Unlike his holographic image, this one she could touch. His skin was clammy, the striated feathers in his hair hanging limp between the curling locks of brown. But his eyes finally opened when she called his name again.

His pupils were constricted with pain, and tiny bolts of white voltage jumped across his irises. “Vaughn…”

“Are you all right? Is this what’s supposed to happen?”

He gave a tiny shake of his head, grimacing as the lead wires pulled at him. “Never transferred so much rough data before. But I got it all, I think. Everything there was, anyway.”

He swatted weakly at the lines, and with a gentle push, she lowered his hands. She eased the suction cups away from his skin, wincing at the raw mark they left behind.

“I should’ve stayed with you,” she fretted. “If I’d known it was this dangerous.”

He grimaced. “It’s just data.”

“It hurt you,” she said flatly as she helped him sit up, his back braced against the bulkhead.

“But if it’ll find your sister…”

Right. And she’d made it clear she was willing to do anything. Vaughn swallowed. “Did you… Was there anything in there about her?”

“I can’t be sure, but in all the empty and corrupted partitions, there was a data black hole that seems suspicious.”

“A data black hole.” She bit her lip, despair rising. “Doesn’t a black hole mean nothing comes out?”

“In the real universe, yes.” With a groan, he edged himself higher. “Or if it were anyone but me.”

No arrogance, just a fact. She handed him the cup of coffee she’d brought.

After he took a gulping mouthful, he groaned again. “So good.”

No wonder he’d felt he needed a partner for this job. He’d have been left vulnerable too many times. He might’ve even died. She resisted the urge to yell at him for such risks and also clenched her fist against the need to brush back the ripple of feathers in his hair. “What else can I do for you?”

He pointed across the room with one finger of the hand still wrapped around the coffee cup. “See that panel? The blinking amber light? Tap it twice.”

She did as he told her, then glanced back at him for his next order. The gel in the tank above his head stopped blinking for a second before the lights began to jump between the tanks. Each bolt of lightning branched twice, three times, a hundred or more, changing color as they spread through the goo in the tanks.

Letting the coffee cup sink to his lap, he closed his eyes. The lights playing over his face only emphasized his pallor. “The black hole is set to suck down all incriminating data, even after the guilty party loses access to the core. But nothing every truly disappears. My gels are clever and cross-connected. If there’s a way in, I’ll find it.”

“That’s all you have to do?” Vaughn asked.

He cracked one eye to glare at her. “I suppose I could burn out the rest of my brain and body for you.”

She flushed. “I didn’t mean… I meant, if you’re done, let’s get you out of here.”

After a moment, he nodded. She took his arm and slung it over her shoulder, straightening her legs to lift him from the ground. He tried to stiffen his knees, but they wobbled under him, flimsy as a feather. But how did she keep forgetting how heavy he was? If anything, he looked worse now than when he’d been lasered. Also on her behalf.

Ah hell, she was as bad as those assholes who thought nothing of using and abusing others for their own gratification.

She gritted her teeth against the need to justify her behavior, to him, to herself. The universe certainly didn’t care.

She got him to the bunkroom and lowered him to his nest. The bulk of pillows eased his fall. “I’ll get you something to eat.”

His eyes had never opened. “Just need rest, reset.”

Last night when he’d needed to settle the IDA info in his head, sex had done the trick. But she supposed all that dating and mating data was gone from him now. And he’d gotten what he needed from her, just as she had from him.

Assuming Rayna’s whereabouts was blinking in that gel.

Her throat aching, she leaned over the edge of the nest and brushed her lips lightly across the slack feathers in his hair. The spicy dark scent of him triggered a rush of longing and lust that flared across her skin. But the lightning sank deeper yet, delving for hidden places she wasn’t ready to explore. Fuck, she had the whole universe ahead of her, and yet her greatest fear wasn’t what was out there…but what was buried within her chest.