Free Wanderlust by Ann Aguirre Page B

a moment like this with anyone.

    Finally, March has to speak because time marches on, as that’s what time does. I’m shocked to find we’ve been up hauling straight space for over twelve hours. “I have bad news and worse news. Which do you want first?”

    Shit. I hate this game.

     
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    CHAPTER 12

    As the hub devolves into many voices talking at once, Vel takes a seat near me, where I’ve collapsed. “Is it always like this?”

    I think about that. “Pretty much. Except sometimes there’s shooting and things blow up.”

    “Give it time,” Dina mutters.

    “Let’s have the worst news first,” I suggest a little louder. “Maybe the bad news won’t seem so bad.”

    March motions for all of us to shut up. “I’ve looked at the routes, and we have two choices. We can go back to New Terra—” Jael immediately protests, and March tries to continue over the noise. “Or we can make for an emergency station two weeks out. If we can’t jump, there’s just nowhere else in this sector.”

    “What’s so bad about the emergency station?” I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering that.

    I stopped at a few in my Corp days. They’re a little grim, true, with their bare-bones floor plans, and they offer only basic amenities, but I don’t remember them as terrible places. We should be able to drop Surge and Koratati off there. They’ll be able to work for their keep until another ride comes by.

    It might be a while since most ships jump at the nearest beacon, six hours out of New Terra, but the kid needs to be old enough to don protective headgear anyway. Looks like she’ll spend her first few turns on an emergency station. That’s not the end of the world.

    “According to reports I pulled, Emry Station is full of Farwan loyalists. They don’t care what the Corp did; they just want to preserve the status quo.”

    I raise both brows. “You mean they don’t accept that it’s over? There’s no Corp left . Doesn’t that technically make them rebels?”

    “Whatever you call them, they won’t receive us politely. They’re demanding the Conglomerate acknowledge them as an autonomous outpost, or they’ll refuse to aid distressed ships in this sector.”

    That could be catastrophic. In time this area will turn into a graveyard, ghost ships floating, full of people who died from someone else’s inaction. Add that to the already astronomical risk of being hit by raiders, well—we can’t let them get away with that.

    This will put us off schedule, but we don’t have a choice. In reflex, I curl my right hand into a fist, and the left tries to follow suit, but instead pain shoots all the way to my elbow. For a moment I see stars, and I’m nowhere near the sensor screen.

    “I’m not going back to New Terra,” Jael says flatly. “I’ll kill you all before I let you turn this ship around.”

    Before March can respond to that, Vel glides to within a few meters of the man issuing such wild threats and examines him with a detached air. “You would try,” he concludes. His ever-so-average appearance lends him menace that borders on spooky.

    If I were Jael, I’d step back. See, this young merc is just too pretty to be as dangerous as he thinks he is. You don’t keep a face like that if you spend your life fighting. He’d have a broken nose or something by now if he actually mixed it up. Instead I find it curious that he reacts so strongly to the possibility of going back. What’s he running from? And is it going to hunt us down?

    March poses that very question aloud as I frame it mentally. It’s almost like he’s Psi or something. Oh, right.

    Jael doesn’t want to answer. It would be my luck to discover Pretty Boy was my mother’s business partner, now running from the Syndicate. Possibly her former lover as well, as I doubt she’s kept herself to an immaculate widowhood.

    Mary. I’ll never see my dad again. Ridiculous it should hit me so hard, right now. Maybe it’s