Free Her Cyborg Awakes (Diaspora Worlds) by Melisse Aires

on the space docks, markets and eateries.
    The docking procedure was similar to simulated
ones she’d done over and over in the past days. She docked with no trouble at
all.
    “Kaistril. Wake up! I did it. We’re docked!”
    Her excitement must have reached him, for his
eyelids fluttered. He smiled, though his eyes were heavy. “Good piloting,” he
whispered. “Send the message.”
    She pressed a kiss to his lips, and he opened his
mouth and met her tongue. “One of these days,” he whispered, “we’re going to do
lots of that.”
    “I can hardly wait.”
    “Me too.” He fell back to sleep.
    Sabralia followed the instructions he had left her
and sent the message.
     
    Chapter Seven
     
    The com received a message from Katherine Hub
about payment procedures. She chose the option of setting an account up at the
Hub financial dept, and arranged for transportation to the finance center and
back to the ship in three hours. That gave her time to get a grav chair for
Kaistril, and sell some jewels.
    “Take a hot tube to go get the grav chair. I’ll go
with you to the jewelers, and carry the weapons.” Kaistril’s speech was more
normal, but he still sat back against the chair with very little movement.
Sabralia reluctantly opened the weaponry cabinet and armed herself with two
small weapons, both non-lethal.
    Sabralia had to go by herself to get a grav chair,
for which she used an ordinary credit film from Alfyt’s bag. As Sabralia got
into the transport she summoned, she saw several young men looking at her. Her
heart revved up. Were they going to rush her? Try to steal her goods? Or kidnap
her? Before her imagination could get out of control, she grabbed one of her
hot tubes, tilted her chin, and gave them a defiant look, making sure the young
men could see she was armed. They did not move toward her.
    The Hub was crazy with movement, chaotic. People
on small gliders zipped around larger, slower transports, and moving pathways
crisscrossed the entire interior of the Hub. The sphere-shaped center was full
of buildings built on floating rafts or platforms built on jutting arms and
scaffolding from the sphere wall. Balconies jutted from the sphere wall. Large
door panels led to the spiral arms where ships docked.
    It looked like mass confusion to Sabralia. She had
not seen this part of the Hub when she traveled from her homeworld to Sirn’s
Harem; she had simply transferred ships out on the perimeter docks.
    Sabralia gasped as a small group of people leaped
off a walkway into the open sphere. They were wearing some sort of floater
device, which they used to float on over to another walkway.
    “What are they wearing, to float like that?” “Jack
boots,” the driver told her. “Very popular here with residents. Cheap. They
hold a charge for a short while, but the charge can be replaced by movement.”
    She entered a personal transport shop with no incident
and picked a grav chair with a riding platform on the back. It had two sets of
controls that either she or Kaistril could use. Being raised as royalty did
have some positive effects. She seemed to have an attitude that commanded
respect. The proprietor of the shop not only summoned a transport that would
take her privately back to the ship with her grav chair, but also paid for it.
    When she entered the ship, she was surprised to
see Kaistril dressed in some of Alfyt’s more somber clothing, including a coat
with a long hood that shaded his face. “Get me weapons,” he said.
    She took far more weapons out of the cabinet than
she could ever imagine using. Kaistril had her place them in Alfyt’s bags and
lock them in the storage compartment under the chair. The cyborg appliances
were in another bag he insisted she tuck in the storage area, too.
    “We’ll sell a small portion of the jewels and see
how that works. If we show the whole collection, we might be noticed. We’re
three days ahead of the ships that are following us. Might have time to