Mick shook her head, watching the men drag the seemingly unconscious—hopefully not dead—Ariston toward the shuttle’s open hatch.

How had he let himself be captured? How had they gotten him so quickly?

More armored figures milled inside the shuttle, a couple peering out, then moving so more could peer out. Ariston had been vastly outnumbered. As she had feared.

That salvage captain had wanted him captured so he could question him—torture him, it had sounded like—and kill him. They would find his Star Guardian tattoo quickly. If they realized he’d been sent out here to spy on them, to gather evidence and bring them in for the courts to judge, that wouldn’t change their minds about killing him. If anything, they would realize they needed to kill him right away, before he could escape and get the evidence he had back to his superiors.

Even though Mick didn’t know Ariston well, her heart ached at the idea of him being tortured and killed. She wanted to get to know him well, damn it.

Nobody was looking toward her wall, at least none of the men outside the shuttle, so she pulled herself all the way up, crouching atop it as she considered her options. Not many. She had to go after him, had to help somehow. She would probably end up captured, too, but maybe the men would be so startled by her appearance that she could gain the advantage. At the least, she and Ariston might be more likely to escape if they were captured together.

“Get captured together,” she muttered under her breath. “What a brilliant plan.”

But she couldn’t imagine much else—it wasn’t as if she could stay and let the shuttle take off without her. Even if she’d had no feelings for Ariston, she needed to get up to the salvage ship to find that converter; otherwise, she and the others would be marooned here for the rest of their lives. Which, given the weirdness of this place, might not be long.

The last of the men stepped into the shuttle, reaching down to lift Ariston’s limp legs through the hatchway. Mick sprang from the wall and ran toward them. If they closed that hatch before she reached it, that would be the end of the story.

Fortunately, the shuttle wasn’t very far away. With her bolt bow clenched in one hand, she sprinted full out.

The running lights shifted, and the thrusters fired up, blowing dust around behind the craft. The hatch started to lower.

Mick dove through the narrowing gap like a swimmer springing from the starting blocks. She careened off someone’s armored legs and tried to roll, to come up firing. She bumped into more people, many more, all shouting exclamations of surprise.

If she’d had any sense in her mind, she would have simply dropped her weapon and let them capture her, but there was no guarantee they would take her prisoner. They might strip her of her armor and kill her.

As she jumped to her feet, she saw Ariston lying facedown where they’d dropped him. Unmoving. God, what if he was already dead?

She roared and fired at the first armored chest she focused on.

Gauntleted hands whipped in from numerous directions, trying to tear her bolt bow away and stop her. Mick kicked and threw elbows, knocking those grasping hands away. Her heel sent someone flying all the way into the cockpit, where two startled pilots in plain clothes shouted in alarm.

Even though she fought like a cornered alley cat, she knew they would soon take her down—sheer numbers dictated the impossibility of anything else.

But then something changed. One of the armored figures jumped to stand beside her, to help her.

“Back to back,” the man barked.

Ariston.

Mick obeyed, turning her back to his so nobody could get behind her. Somehow, she’d retained her grip on her bolt bow. She fired into the men all around her, kicking anyone who got close.

In the tight quarters, the kicks were more effective than the weapons fire. With the enhanced power of her armored lower body, she could send men flying. They slammed into bulkheads with jarring strength. Even though their armor insulated them, her efforts pushed them back, taking them out of the battle for a few seconds.

In the chaos, Ariston managed a free moment to lunge to the side and clunk an elbow against the hatch panel before re-engaging in the battle.

Mick, catching the movement out of the corner of her eye, thought it was accidental. The hatch opened, and her breath caught. They had already risen fifty feet, the ruins now visible from above through the hazy air. An alarm wailed from the cockpit.

“What are you—” Mick started to ask. But an armored body flying past her interrupted her.

A man Ariston had thrown. His foe hurtled through the hatch, arms flailing as he dropped out of sight.

Mick realized that had been strategy, not an accident. He was trying to get rid of their enemies.

The next man who lunged in close to Mick punched for her face. She swept her arm up in a karate middle block, knocking the fist aside. She dropped her bolt bow and stepped in to slam a palm strike into his faceplate.

Again, the armor enhanced her power. His head snapped back hard enough that it had to hurt, even with his neck insulated.

He tried to grab her shoulder, more to hold on to her than as an attack, she wagered. Having none of that, Mick blocked the move. This time, she gripped his arm and tugged him toward the hatch, tripping him to keep him off balance. He stumbled a step toward the open hatchway, the wind gusting past, and started to recover, but she stepped back to gain enough space, then rammed a side kick into his butt. He flew through the hatchway.

Another man tumbled out right after him. Ariston was still at her back, still battling multiple opponents and keeping them from getting close to her.

Two more lunged in, trying to tackle Mick. Normally, she would have dodged, but that would have let them get to Ariston’s back, and she had to protect him as he protected her.

She went down on one knee, letting one get close, looming right over her. She came up, ramming her shoulder into his abdomen as he grabbed her. She thrust upward and sideways with her legs, hoping to hurl him out the hatchway.

He had more presence of mind than the last man and stuck his arms and legs out to keep from going through.

Before Mick could think about throwing a kick his way to dislodge him, the other man fired at her. The en-bolt bounced off her armor, and she made herself lunge toward him, even though her instincts yelled at her to dive to the deck and get away from that weapon.

She whipped her hand out, catching the frame of his bolt bow as he tried to leap back for another shot. She yanked it toward her as she snapped a kick into his armored groin. His legs flew out from under him, and his face contorted with anger, but he didn’t let go of the weapon.

“Fine by me,” Mick growled and yanked again, this time with both hands wrapped around it.

Once more, she dropped to one knee. She pulled her foe over her head and toward the hatch. He stubbornly clung to the weapon as he sailed past. She let go and he crashed into the other man at the hatchway. That one had managed to get himself turned back around and appeared ready to jump into the fight again—just in time for his comrade to slam into his chest. They tumbled through the hatchway together.

Fists up—Mick had no idea where her own bolt bow had gone—she looked for her next opponent.

But the only armored man still standing was Ariston. The two pilots at the helm were hiding under the console. One had a stunner and clutched it as she glared out around the seat base, but she didn’t bother shooting at Mick and Ariston in their armor.

Ariston glanced through the open hatch, then shoved a couple more unmoving men in armor through it.

“Will they survive the drop?” Mick asked, surprised at what seemed callousness on his part.

“From fifty feet? In armor? They should. We’ve moved away from the ruins, so they’ll have a hike to get back, if they care to bother, but leaving them in here would have been problematic. I don’t have a can opener.”

“A what?” Mick envisioned him pulling cans of tuna fish out of some hidden compartment and frowning woefully at them, perhaps because he was tired of his nasty suet bars.

“There are a number of tools, most related to magtorches, for getting enemies out of their armor, and that’s what we usually call them.”

“Ah.”

Ariston turned toward the cockpit, toward the man and woman glowering at him from under the console. But he didn’t walk toward them right away. He gave Mick a considering look.

It occurred to her that he didn’t look much like a man who had screamed in pain and been unconscious only minutes before.

“Did I ruin your plan?” she asked, realizing it must have been a ruse.

“No… Just set it in action sooner than I’d intended.” Ariston sounded amused rather than annoyed. “I was planning to wait until I was in the shuttle bay on the salvage ship and—hopefully—surrounded by fewer people.”

He looked at the pilots again, and Mick grimaced. Would they be able to get onto the salvage ship at all now? The pilots wouldn’t voluntarily help them.

Ariston could perhaps threaten them or force them to fly the shuttle up to the bigger ship, but there might be some passcode required to land inside its bay. Even a comm conversation could prove disastrous. Presumably, the crew was small enough that whoever operated the bay doors would recognize a stranger speaking. Or an enemy.

“Sorry,” Mick said. “I heard you scream and thought nefarious and disastrous things were happening to you.”

“They were.” Ariston rubbed his side, though he couldn’t have felt it through his armor. Still, the gesture suggested he’d taken a battering. “I had to make my capture convincing.” He lifted his hand to her shoulder and gave her a pat. “I’m glad it worked. My people love the theater, and I have actors in my family.” He smiled at her. “I can’t be sorry that you cared enough to come rescue me.”

“Well, I need that converter.”

“Yes, of course.”

“And someone to install it.”

“So, you would have been devastated by my loss.”

“Extremely so.”

Ariston patted her again and strode toward the cockpit.

To Mick’s surprise, he lifted his hands to unfasten his helmet. That would make him vulnerable to a stunner—or any other kind of weapon the two pilots might have squirreled away. The way they exchanged glances made Mick think they were lovers or at least people who knew each other well, people who could devise a plan communicating only by facial gestures.

Mick recovered her bolt bow and walked closer, aiming it in the pilots’ direction.

“I need you to continue flying us up to the Pleasant Journey,” Ariston said, looking down at them.

“Screw you, traitor,” the man said.

“Are we not both going against Eryx’s wishes, Teia?” Ariston gazed frankly down at them. “I saw you two removing skulls from that reservoir.”

Oh, these were the two who had done that? How had they ended up flying this shuttle? Or had they taken over at the helm when they came aboard? Perhaps because they wore clothes instead of armor, they had been given that duty, while the rest of the crew had gone out to deal with Ariston.

“You know the captain wouldn’t approve of that,” Ariston added. “He is, in his own vigilante way, fighting for justice out here.”

The woman snorted. “Justice that lines his pockets with drachmas, just as this will line ours. Just as someone is lining yours, I’m sure. What’s your angle? Who’s paying you?”

Ariston set his helmet down on one of their seats and touched the tab in the collar to loosen it and his torso pieces.

“You’re stripping for them?” Mick asked. “I thought you only did that for people who beat you at Kapti.”

“I’ve been known to make exceptions.”

Mick kept an eye on the pilots and also on the view screen while Ariston removed his armor. Though nobody was at the helm, they appeared to be flying level. That was fine as long as the terrain below didn’t rise, but she remembered from the flight in that there were mountains in the distance. The sun had broken through the clouds, perhaps a sign that the storm was over, and its orange rays shone down upon the rugged landscape.

Mick eyed the console, wondering if she could fly the shuttle. Her sister could have, whether she could read any of the Dethocolean labels or not, with her natural aptitude for piloting. But Mick’s job in the Marines had been repairing airplanes, not flying them. She’d learned on the Viper and gotten her pilot’s license on a planet Katie had suggested, where all you had to do was drop money in some government lackey’s pocket and prove you could take off and land without crushing buildings, vehicles, or people.

The woman’s stunner twitched as Ariston lowered his torso pieces, revealing his black undershirt.

“Don’t even think about it,” Mick said, making a show of stepping closer and aiming her bow at the woman. “In fact, why don’t I remove the temptation?”

She knelt down and reached for the stunner. The woman jerked her hand back, but not quickly enough. Mick caught it and yanked it free.

“Come out from there and give me any other weapons you have,” Mick said.

“Screw you.”

Mick wondered if every human culture out there had some variation of that statement. “Unless you have some interesting toys in your cabin, I think you’ll find that difficult.”

The man snorted and smirked. The woman—Teia, was it?—glared at him, and he lost the smirk. Mick decided Teia was the brains of their twosome, or at least the one who both considered to be in charge.

Movement at the edge of Mick’s vision made her jerk around, her bow pointing toward the back. Had one of the armored men been hiding in the engine compartment?

But when she looked, there was nobody in sight. Could someone have peered out, then jerked his head back in when he saw what was going on? Or were her eyes playing tricks on her again?

“Thought I was past that,” she grumbled to herself.

She’d made it all the way from the Viper to here without any hallucinations, if that’s what they were.

Mick turned back, glad she’d relieved the woman of her stunner; otherwise, Teia might have taken advantage of that moment. Mick couldn’t believe how casually Ariston was removing his gear—now he was rolling up his sleeves.

“Teia,” Ariston said calmly, not remembering the man’s name. “You asked who my employer is.” He lowered his forearm so they could see his Star Guardian tattoo. “If I have betrayed the captain and crew of the salvage ship, it is because they’ve betrayed the Confederation and the law of men by colluding to kill crews and capture and destroy ships. While I understand that Eryx feels justified because he’s targeting people who may be criminals themselves, taking the law into one’s own hands like that isn’t permitted, nor is profiting from the deaths of others, whether their actions are criminal or not. I’ve recorded enough footage to condemn Eryx for his actions, and I also recorded the two of you looting the ruins.”

During his speech, the pilots’ eyes seemed transfixed by him, locked on to his tattoo.

“We didn’t—” the woman started to say, but he was quick to interrupt.

“Will I not find sacks full of skulls with ancient Wanderer chips embedded in them if I search this shuttle?” Ariston asked.

They clammed up.

“Mick,” Ariston said, “do that search for me, will you, please?” He lowered his voice so they wouldn’t hear his next comment—Mick wouldn’t have, either, if they hadn’t been on an open comm channel together, his words coming through the speaker near her ear. “Make sure nobody else is hiding back there too.”

“I will, but if I do you a favor, I expect a return favor later,” Mick said.

She intended it as a joke, but he frowned over her.

“Related to my position as a Star Guardian?” he asked, wariness in his tone.

Oh, he worried she wanted a favor that would require him to go against his duty, his honor. Perhaps to pretend he’d never seen her and her ship here.

That might be nice, but if Mick truly got in trouble over this, she would go to her sister for help. Katie would have advice and might be able to pull in a favor from the Star Guardians she knew. From everything Mick had heard, Zakota’s captain, Sagitta, was the most famous of the Star Guardian commanders and had been a war hero during the Territory Wars. He could probably get a case against a friend of a friend waved out of existence. Not that Mick wanted to rely on anyone for help. She would simply speak the whole truth, that she’d been hired and hadn’t known she was doing anything questionable.

“Related to the position you were in next to my dining table earlier,” Mick said, and wiggled her eyebrows at him so he couldn’t miss the innuendo.

“Ah.” He sounded relieved, though she had no idea if that was because he was excited about doing such favors or if he was simply happy she wasn’t trying to use him.

As Mick headed for the rear of the shuttle, Ariston spoke again to his two prisoners.

“If you return all the skulls and if you assist me in getting aboard the Pleasant Journey without Eryx knowing, I will testify on your behalf in court.”

The woman started to repeat her favorite phrase regarding screwing, but the man stopped her with a hand on her forearm.

“How about this?” he suggested. “We help you get in, then you tie us up in the back so it’s clear we were forced to help against our wishes, and then you forget you ever saw us.”

“Leaving you to return to the ruins and scavenge again or to join the crew of another criminal?”

“We’ve learned our lesson and would faithfully follow the law if given a second chance,” Teia said.

She sounded as sincere as a used car salesman passing off a lemon.

The corridor narrowed as Mick headed toward an open hatchway that led to the engineering compartment in the rear. She paused to peek through two side doors. The opening to the left led to a stack of bunks with so little room next to them that she couldn’t rightfully call the space a cabin. More like a glorified coffin.

She paused long enough to peek under the bottom one and above the top to make sure there weren’t any bulging sacks of skulls hidden inside. She grimaced at the gruesome task she’d been given, but reminded herself that she’d seen death numerous times. Two-thousand-year-old skulls were relics of the past, nothing more. They might have been gruesome millennia ago, but they were only bones now.

The door on the opposite side led to a lavatory that wasn’t any larger than one on an airplane back home. Maybe smaller. One would have been hard-pressed to hide a roll of toilet paper in there, much less a bag of skulls. A compact first-aid kit mounted on the wall was definitely too small to store skulls in.

Engineering was also compact—there was no way a chubby engineer could have plied his trade there. Her armor clunked against protrusions and corners as she eased around machinery and computers occupying the space. The shuttle was clearly meant for short-term voyages.

Engineering held more potential hiding spots, so she made herself search slowly.

The shuttle shuddered, and Mick gripped a console. Apparently, the storm wasn’t quite finished. Or maybe, with nobody actively manning the helm, the shuttle was hitting every bit of turbulence out there. She could hear Ariston still trying to persuade the pilots to do as he wanted without using force.

A snap came from the left, and Mick whirled. But whatever had broken had happened behind a panel. She stared at the spot, now more disturbed by the shudders reverberating through the craft.

This shuttle hadn’t been under fire, so it shouldn’t have any internal or structural damage. Unless some stray en-bolts from her battle had struck something important. She grimaced, now eyeing the consoles and bulkheads for scorch marks as well as sacks of skulls.

And she spotted a few. A freshly melted hole in a back bulkhead added to her unease.

As she continued snaking through the minuscule aisles, bumping her boobs and butt on equipment, Mick thought she heard more noises. Faint creaks and groans. Was it her imagination, or was some structural failure imminent?

Surely, alarms would flash in the cockpit if that were so. But were those pilots paying any attention to the helm? Mick could no longer make out the words of the conversation, but Ariston and the woman were arguing now.

“Just find those skulls,” she whispered to herself. After that, she could go up there and fly if needed.

But when she completed her search of engineering, she hadn’t found anything. Was it possible the relic thieves hadn’t brought their booty aboard the shuttle? Maybe they’d stashed the skulls in the ruins, planning to get a ship of their own and come back one day. But they would have risked someone else stumbling across them in the meantime, and it couldn’t be easy to get a ride out to a planet in a system nobody had a reason to visit.

Mick propped her fist on her hip, looking around once more from the hatchway. Those two wouldn’t have had much time to hide them if they had brought them on board. She was surprised she hadn’t found them yet.

Then her gaze snagged on a square panel in the ceiling that was darker than the others. No, not a panel. A door. It was similar to an attic door with a small latch tucked into a hollow.

“Do shuttles have attics?” she muttered.

A storage area, perhaps. Skull storage?

Mick clambered up on a console so she could reach the latch. She half-expected it to be locked, but it released easily, and she pulled downward, lowering the trapdoor. A dark space opened up above her.

From her spot, she couldn’t tell if it was only above engineering or if it extended all the way to the front. She reached up to pull herself through but paused as another snap came from the back of engineering.

“Ariston?” she asked over the comm.

“Yes?” he answered promptly.

“Are there any alarms on the console up there?”

“Nothing. We’ve adjusted our flight path, and we’re heading up to orbit.”

“Does that mean they agreed to help us?”

“Not exactly.” His tone turned dry. “We’re still negotiating.”

“How much power do you actually have to negotiate?”

“Mm,” was all he said in reply.

Mick supposed they were listening to his half of the conversation, and it wouldn’t behoove him to admit anything out loud, especially if he was bluffing. She hoped he wasn’t bluffing since he was awful at that. She wondered how high up he was in his organization. He seemed to be at least forty, so he must be of a respectable rank, but she had no idea if he had any sway over his superiors or what the courts did after he testified. That was another reason she shouldn’t depend on him speaking on her behalf. She would have to find her own way out of her mess. And that was fine.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “Still looking for the skulls.”

“It would be helpful to find them,” he murmured, his words almost too low to hear.

She took that to mean that having them as evidence would do more to condemn those two than whatever video he’d recorded.

“Doing my best.” Mick placed her hands to either side of the trapdoor entrance and pulled herself up for a better look.

It was too dark to see anything. Her helmet had a headlamp but not night vision like some of the fancier—and more expensive—models. She activated the light.

Her guess of a storage area was correct. Crates had been haphazardly shoved into a space about four feet high, leaving crooked aisles between them. Here and there, dusty engine parts stuck out into those aisles.

She shone her lamp downward. A layer of dust on the floor had been disturbed recently.

“On the right track,” she muttered, then pulled herself the rest of the way up, coming to rest on her hands and knees.

As she rose to a crouch, another shudder wracked the shuttle. She wobbled and caught herself, almost asking Ariston what was happening. But he was busy. He would let her know if they were truly in trouble.

Walking in a crouch, she followed the path of disturbed dust down a narrow aisle between stacks of crates.

A groan drifted up from engineering. It sounded like the pained dying of a machine.

Mick reminded herself—firmly—that her mind had been playing tricks on her ever since they’d landed.

She grimaced and kept going. The groans grew louder, seeming to come from all around her.

A snap sounded, and she imagined the wind ripping away an exterior panel and sending it hurtling back down to the planet.

“Not happening,” she whispered, though she couldn’t help but have doubts.

The medical AI hadn’t found anything in their scans to explain this. A little extra brain activity? Would that truly mean seeing and hearing things? Headaches? Seizures? What if all she’d ever believed was wrong, and restless spirits could reach out from the afterworld to affect the living? Or the shuttles the living were riding in?

She imagined the long-dead owners of those skulls being pissed that they’d been disturbed, stolen away so somebody could profit from them.

Mick growled at her darting—and ridiculous—thoughts and pressed forward. She peered into the gaps between the crates. Nothing but dust.

The area grew less cluttered up ahead. She had to be over the passenger compartment now. There wasn’t much more area to search. She—

Her headlamp went out.

Mick halted, her heart suddenly pounding in her ears.

“Light,” she croaked, her voice dry.

It was the command to turn on the headlamp, but nothing happened.

She continued forward, anyway. She would search by hand in the dark if she had to.

The shuttle shifted, tilting toward the starboard side, and a faint clunk and thump came from up ahead. Was it possible someone was up here? Hiding?

She had left her bolt bow propped against the bulkhead in engineering. She was on the verge of scrambling back to get it when something bumped her hand.

Mick gasped—it was all she could do not to scream—and jerked her hand back.

“Light,” she ordered again, harshly.

The headlamp turned on.

Light shone over dozens of skulls rolling around the dusty deck, a sack tipped over and open to the side.

Even though it was exactly what she’d been looking for, Mick reeled back at all those sightless eyes staring at her. One rolled up against her boot, and she looked down at it.

Abruptly, the dimness of the shuttle disappeared, and harsh desert light flared all around her. She was back in the village market, the boy strolling casually through the crowded street, her fellow Marines chatting and smiling as they enjoyed a drink.

“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out of there!”

They turned and looked at her, faces puzzled, as if she were speaking a different language. They waved for her to join them. The boy smiled knowingly at her.

She ran toward him, determined to stop him. She had never been able to try that before, never been able to do anything but watch the dream—the memory—play out.

His eyes widened as she sprang toward him. She landed atop him, bringing him to the ground and trying to pull away the bomb she knew lay under his clothing, trying to stop it from going off.

But it blew up right under her. The world exploded in light, her body flying upward.

Oddly, she felt no pain. She looked down on the market from above, saw the smoke clearing, saw her body land next to the boy’s. They were both dead, as were the people to either side of them, her comrades included.

Nothing had changed. She’d given her life, but nothing had changed.