Free Song of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy

thoughtful.
    She opened her mouth to say thank you, but closed it at the sound of footsteps from the corridor. Finn strode through the hatch, eyeing the navpilot with a look that said he would prefer she leave at once.
    Cat gave him an arch smile. “We meet again.”
    He didn’t respond. His resentment of Cat was understandable—she’d promised him freedom and he’d been tricked back into slavery. The navpilot wasn’t oblivious to his feelings, either. She seemed to lose her nerve, a far cry from the situation back on Talas Prime where she’d taken for granted his yielding to her authority.
    Edie watched with bemusement as Cat forced a smile. “So, Finn. How d’you like your new quarters? Cozier than the Catacombs, I’ll bet.”
    Finn took the tray of food from the console and sat next to Edie to eat it, stabbing at the pieces of bread with a fork. He ignored both women until Cat, with an impatient glance in Edie’s direction, backed down with a shrug.
    â€œSee you at the briefing, okay?”
    She left, snapping the hatch shut behind her.
    Edie’s spine prickled self-consciously as she felt Finn’seyes on her, watching her fold the clothes and make a neat pile of them, along with the pillow slip and the bottles of shampoo on top.
    â€œHey, I didn’t ask for this stuff,” she said, feeling guilty for accepting gifts from the woman who was at least partially responsible for his current situation.
    â€œDon’t get too cozy with the enemy. You’re not part of this crew.”
    â€œBut it makes sense to play nice, right? She brought things for you, too.” Edie tapped the duffle bag with the toe of her boot. “And she gave me back my own boots.”
    His looked down at them and his lips curved in a half formed but real smile. Edie ran her hands over the familiar zips and buckles of her boots. They felt great. Despite everything that was wrong, something was right when she had her own boots.
    â€œI should find out when that briefing is.” Edie slid into the console and pulled up Haller’s memos. When she saw the first one, she forgot about the briefing. It was the files she’d asked for—her records.
    She glanced over her shoulder to see Finn digging into the pockets of the duffle bag. He pulled out some new clothes, a basic tool belt for shipside duties, an empty spur bracket, and a datastick of caps that must be the books Cat had mentioned. While he packed away the clothes, Edie downloaded her records onto her new palmet, deleted the memo, and went to her room. She didn’t want Finn reading her personal stuff over her shoulder.
    Sitting cross-legged on the bunk, Edie opened the files. The palmet extruded a glowing holo-cylinder that displayed her records in a revolving field, each one labeled haphazardly and filed apparently randomly. Education reports. Training program: biocyph interface. Psych evaluation, age 14…
    She searched the files for Lukas, her first bodyguard and her only friend after Bethany’s death. He’d been an ex-milit, a loyal Crib citizen who’d guarded Bethany for years and then her. He’d just disappeared one day—“retired,” or sothey told her. It had been a while since she trusted anything the Crib said, including that.
    The search turned up zero hits. She tried again with different parameters, not believing her eyes. Nothing. They’d wiped Lukas from existence. Having controlled Edie’s life since she was ten years old, they could certainly control what got written into her records.
    Edie scanned through the data again, swallowing the anger that made her throat ache. She could’ve jacked in and absorbed the facts five times faster via a softlink, but there was something about seeing the stark words before her eyes that made cold reality seem more real. And even colder.
    One of the oldest documents was her guardianship-transfer paper. After the Crib