Following Loree through the maze of hallways I glared at the cuff cutting into my skin. They were different from what Mack and Zayda had encountered on the prison satellite, but obviously made to the same general plan. How difficult was this going to be to remove? And were these equipped to give out a shock as some sort of corrective measure, like those had been?

If we could contact Zayda, she’d have some ideas. But with SysSec crawling everywhere, that might be difficult. And with the Prince already on the station, the timeline just got compressed.

Tiny red dots at each intersection, midway through each corridor, high in every corner, revealed the location of microcams.

Themis might’ve had them before, but now that Stanton and SysSec were here, it would be even harder to slip through their net.

A grin tugged the corners of my mouth. That was all right, I did difficult well.

But my smile faded when I looked at Loree’s luscious curves a step in front of me. I didn’t like having her this close to danger. It would work out. It had to.

I let my thinking fuzz for a minute, waiting for a flash of intuition, of warning, anything. But the memory of her in that red dress wouldn’t leave.

Dammit.

A few others had already arrived at the room the cuffs guided us to do. Tables and benches slid out of walls. It looked like the room could be configured in a number of different ways. Useful.

As the last of our group trickled in Boehm arrived. “Alright, my chicks, pay attention. First, let’s get a little something in you. It’s not much, but trust me you’re not going to want a full meal. Not at the moment.”

Baskets were on the tables containing basic food bars. Plain, in the flavor I’d always thought of as ’not much.’ I suspected that spending the day on Mills and Tilly’s algae farm meant it would taste of even less. Food bar, basic replicator grub, not much difference. All algae in the end.

When everyone had started gnawing on their bricks Boehm threw a projection into the middle of the room and set it spinning slowly before us. “This is Themis.” The peak had been sliced flat off of a mountain, a low crystal dome in its place. With a wave, the mountain disappeared so that only the dome remained.

Boehm raised the image until we could see the thick disc supporting the dome. “And this is where we are.” The projection unfolded, showing a cross-section of the station and the disk. “Research areas, recreational areas, demonstration and testing. Most of which you won’t need to get to, so just trust the cuff to keep you to authorized zones.”

“Then who takes care of maintenance?” a small dark woman asked.

“Bots cover everything under the dome,” Boehm said. “Got mechs keeping the bots in shape. They do fine.”

A look of confusion ran through the group. “Then what are we for?”

Boehm tapped the projection again, pushing the disk away to leave only the glittering dome. “This.” As he expanded the dome we could see pink and purple blotches marring the crystal perfection.

He expanded the view again.

“Are those flowers?” Loree wondered.

“Close.” He expanded again until the room was filled with strange organic twists. “It’s a type of algae that adapted to bloom at this altitude. Only way to keep it in hand is to scrape it off.”

“Why aren’t the bots doing that?” the dark woman pressed.

“Because of these.” Boehm pushed away the projection of the dome and brought up an image of a fluffy green creature with huge brown eyes and little golden tips running down the back of its head, a long tail curling behind.

A general coo ran through the room. I might’ve joined it. Maybe.

“Cute, but it’ll kill you.”

Out on the ledge our group huddled, everyone pressed back against the wall, carefully not looking over the edge.

Except for Madden. He adjusted his harness, the straps crossing his chest, wrapping his legs and arm, the cleaning solution and scraper dangling at his hips. He had done this before, wanted to make sure everyone knew it.

And of course Loree. “Look how far you can see!” I could see all right, better yet, I could smell the clean crisp air that whipped around us, tugging out locks from her braid, bringing me smells from deep inside the mountain range.

“Come on babe, it’s almost our turn.”

One by one we shuffled forward. The procedure was relatively simple.

Stand in front of Boehm while he grabbed one of the cables dangling down from a ring at the very top of the dome and clipped it to the chest band of the harness. Then a quick tap of the shoes to activate the grippers in the toes.

Finally a flick to the controls on the cable and up and away the terrified new cleaner went.

“Bounce to the side!” Boehm shouted after each person went flailing up. “Clear the way for the next!”

Madden clipped in and bounced away up to the far side of the dome out of sight without a word.

“How do people avoid tangling their cables?” Loree asked, “And how long does the solution take to work? Has anyone done any testing on the components of flowers?”

Boehm didn’t answer any of her questions, just cocked an eyebrow waiting for her to wind down.

“Mind sending us up at the same time?” I asked. “She’ll get her legs under her faster if I’m there. And we’ll work twice as hard as a team.”

“Don’t think you’ve done anything quite like this, son,” was the dry reply. “Just keep your line straight and get your work done.”

With a click and a hiss we rocketed up the dome. I kept a careful grip on Loree’s arm as we ascended halfway up.

“Last one went left, so we should go right.” I flexed my legs, bouncing on my toes until I got the feel of the boots gripping the surface of the dome.

“Try it like this.” With a slight lean and a touch more pressure on my left leg, I jumped up slightly then came down a meter further to the side.

Loree’s face twisted in absorption.

“Kick, jump, land. I could do that. Sure I can.” And she did, but kicked so hard with her left that she spun, her feet thrashing out free, kicking at nothing but air.

I grabbed her before her back hit the dome.

“I’m pretty cushioned back there, you know.” She twisted out of my arms squeezing my hand to let me know she was okay. “Come on, I want to try again.”

By the time the rest of the crew was on the dome she had it, bouncing and skipping across the smooth surface with ease. “This thing is janky as hell, though.” She fiddled with the cable feeder. “Half the time it’s fine, but then it decided to be all jerky.”

“Please don’t take it apart while we’re up here, alright babe?”

“You’re no fun at all sometimes.” But she left it alone. It did have a tendency to jerk during the rise up the cable, and drop at a disturbingly random speed on the way down. Still, this wasn’t the time to fix it.

Blotches of low-spreading algae dotted the surface of the entire dome, so it was easy to find a close patch and start working. Before long we got into a rhythm.

“They’re really lovely,” Loree murmured as she applied a swatch of the mild solution to another patch of the blooms. “It’s a shame to destroy them.”

“Maybe you can tell the boss you want to start a garden somewhere,” I joked, running the scraper behind where the solution had loosened the grip. “Keep an eye out for those bird things.”

Tofins, Boehm had called them. The critters found the algae a delicacy, weren’t shy about defending their snacking grounds, and didn’t like loud noises. Sounded charming.

“Nothing yet. Beautiful view, but at the moment I don’t think anything is trying to kill us.”

“That’s a nice change.”

It was beautiful. From this altitude the sun’s rays scattered across the cloud cover. We couldn’t see through it, just lurid streaks and ripples of colors painting clouds, the peaks of surrounding mountains circling Themis.

“Speaking of things not trying to kill us,” Loree started, then hunched her shoulders, peering about in a parody of suspicion.

“I think we’re safe to talk here. First order of business should be to get a message back to Doc and Ronan. Then get plans for this place, see what’s where.”

“We don’t have any idea what Stanton’s doing here, and if the Prince is already here, we’re running out of time.. How do we know what to look for?”

That was a problem. But we didn’t have time to just wait around. We had to at least be gathering intel. “Anything out of the ordinary for now. I hope.”

“Do we consider standing on the outside of a dome ordinary or not?”

I smacked her hip lightly with the scraping tool, and she leaned back, balancing against the cable. “This section looks clear.”

Where the algae bloom had been removed, the dome glittered. Below us the entire lab spread out like a projection of itself.

“We need to find out what each of those buildings are. That open space, the tower in the middle. We need schematics just to get a grip on this place.”

“If I can get that tablet working again,” Loree muttered, “that’ll be a good start.”

Boehm joined us on the dome zipping up and down his cable and bouncing from side to side like a master.

“Alright kids, time to call it,” he called softly on his third pass around.

“Already?” Loree asked. “We haven’t been out for long. And there’s so much left to do!”

“Long enough for you newbies to get an idea of how this works, and if you’re going to cut it. I’d rather send the washouts down now.” He bounced away. “And there’s always more to do, trust me. Full shift will start in the morning.”

Sure enough, two men decided that even for the extra creds, they couldn’t keep their nausea at bay.

Back in the central room, we stowed our gear into lockers. “I still want to take a look at those slider controls,” Loree argued.

“Tomorrow, babe. It’s been a long day, and we’ve got a call to make, right?”

Boehm led the two washouts away before we realized it, so we had to chase after them in the halls.

“Is there public comm we can use?” Loree asked. “We’ve kinda had a rough couple of days, I’d like to call my Mom.”

“There’s one over in section three.” He brought up the schematic of the base, traced the path. “Remember, though, everything is charged against your salary. Order food other than the basic bricks, extra upgrades to your dorm, calls across the universe. It’s all available, but you’ll pay.”

“I’ll pay if I don’t call Mom,” I answered.

“Wait,” he frowned. “I thought she needed to call her mom. And your file says you’re married, right?”

Loree and I stared at each other. I didn’t have a snappy answer to this one. He shook his head. “Some planets. Just get any kids gene checked, all right?”

“Any way we could have a map to reference instead of asking you?” Loree skipped past the awkwardness. “You’ve got to have other things to do.”

“That’s an understatement,” he muttered.”SysSec decided three of my best mechs were a security risks, sent them down a day ago. Still don’t have replacements.”

Well, that was interesting. And probably useful.

“How do you apply for something like that?” Loree asked. “I’m pretty good around a toolbox.”

“You get pretty good scraping that dome, and we’ll talk. As long as the agency doesn’t decide to send you down in their next random purge.”

He tapped our cuffs again with the stylus.

“You should have the maps now. Don’t get in trouble. Don’t try to get to the areas your cuffs show are red. Don’t give me more work.”

“Trouble’s the last thing on our mind,” Loree said, stretching. “We want to call home and then hit the sack.”

“You do that. Tomorrow’s an early start.”

As we followed the directions to the comm, I ran the message to Doc through my head. Something that told her where we were, asked about the prisoners she was testing, asked for any intel from Ronan, and convinced her it was an authentic message.

Nothing too hard.

And all the while one part of my brain spun the phrases, another was still hung up on Boehm’s words. Have kids gene-tested. Not a bad idea, even if it wasn’t for the reasons he thought.

But.

Kids.

I’d never thought about having kids before. Not seriously.

Connor and Eris didn’t seem to have any problems.

And now...

“So, what he said back there,” I trailed off, rubbed my hand through the back of my hair.

If there ever was a time for this conversation, now was probably not it.

“I know, stay out of trouble, don’t go exploring,” Loree chirped. “Which is a shame since I want to see how everything works.” She blinked up at me and winked. “Think he’d let me test for the mechanical section?”

“He’d be an idiot not to. I’ve got the message for Mom sorted. Do you have the current number?”

“I’m not sure where she’s going to be so I might have to pass it through her assistant first.”

Nixie. I nodded. Good plan. I hated using a terminal monitored by SysSec, but between Loree and Nixie they could keep the traces to a minimum.

Loree slipped into the booth and I squeezed in behind her.

“I don’t think we both fit here,” she fussed. “Let me punch it up, and we’ll switch.”

“We fit just fine. Just need to be a little friendly about things.”

Her soft curves pressed against me. Void. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. I was going to need to see how cold that shower tube could get.

She punched in the comm coordinates and we waited for a connection.

“Darn, it’s going to a message.” She wiggled her ass against me. Tease.

I pulled her back into me, fingers cupping her hips as I ran through the words a final time. Two could play at this.

“Hi Mom. “ I’d give creds to see Doc’s face at that opening. Maybe Nixie would keep a recording. “Sorry we missed you but wanted to let you and the family know we got that job after all. How are your guests doing? Are they feeling any better? Everything here is fine but I’d sure like to know what was wrong with them. Hope it wasn’t something they ate! Maybe they just need some of your oatmeal.”

Location transmitted. Check. Request for intel on those prisoners from the Compound. Check. Signal that Loree was still with me. Check. Confirmation of identity. Check. One last thing.

“Looking forward to seeing more family soon, but it will probably be a while before that’s possible.”

Don’t need backup yet. Probably.

“Hope to hear from you soon.”

Which was a thousand percent true. We might find clues to Stanton’s plan on the ground, but Ronan, Nixie and the rest of the team had an entire Empire of information to sort through. With luck, they’d find something, and we’d be on hand to stop it.

Without luck, whatever was going to happen here, Loree and I had just walked into the flash point.

Good thing I believed in luck.

Loree closed the message, leaned against my chest. “That’s the best we can do.”

I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and she winced. “All that bouncing and bending is harder than it looks.”

“Let’s get back to the dorm, and I’ll rub out some of that tightness.”

“And that’s all you’re rubbing,” she raised her eyebrows expectantly and slid out from the comm booth.

I followed her, grumbling in my head, even if I agreed. Even more reason to get this job done quickly.

More than half distracted, I bumped into Madden as we came around the last corner to the dorms.

His lips twisted into a snarl, shoulders pulled back for a punch, but he caught himself, stomping away.

“Watch yourself, newbie,” he called back over his shoulder. “Tofins aren’t the only thing that’ll kill you here.”