Free No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three by Loren Rhoads Page A

need to get dry,” Coni said. “Stay here.”
    The rain had given way to a steamy overcast. Coni stepped out into the passage and gave herself a hearty shake. She would be all up in frizz after this, but at least the weight was off of her skin.
    Haoun commed Mykah. “Here are the coordinates of the Avah Lodge, at the city edge of the spaceport. You have a reservation for two as Filla Saileish. I’ll meet you there with a key.”
    “Thanks, Haoun.” As an afterthought, Mykah added, “She’ll be okay.”
    The Na’ash laughed. “I never thought I’d see her go so tamely.”
    “She was protecting us,” Coni said.
    “Which is why we’re going to get her out,” Mykah promised.
    *   *   *
    In the Avah’s unoccupied business office, Coni attached the scrambler to her handheld before she cabled it to the hotel monitor. She had been carrying the device around in her bag for weeks, but this was the first time she’d ever found a use for it.
    She searched on Raena’s name and found a bounty hunters’ carousel. A blurry security photo of Raena in a bright blue dress and sunglasses showed her standing outside the Veracity . She seemed in the process of shooting out the camera as it captured her image.
    “Sloppy,” Mykah said. “She must have been in a hurry.”
    Coni noticed the date. “That was the day we left Kai. Raena was waiting for us to come take control of the Veracity .”
    The next photo down showed Raena at the beach yesterday, dragging the Walosi out of the surf after the fight.
    “That’s how the bounty hunter knew she was here.” Coni didn’t know what to make of the price on Raena’s head. It wasn’t as high as she expected. Wanted alive, the poster said.
    “What’s she charged with?” Mykah asked.
    Coni opened the poster up. “Kidnapping. Theft of an Imperial-era diplomatic transport called the Raptor .”
    Mykah rocked back in the uncomfortable business office chair. The seat was too deep for him to get his feet on the floor. He imagined how Raena felt, with her short legs, in a galaxy where everything had been made for bigger creatures.
    “We forgot to pay the docking fees on Kai,” he said. “I’ll bet they don’t really care that we stole the ship; they just care that we didn’t pay up before we left.”
    “So her arrest is our fault,” Coni said.
    Mykah didn’t deny it. They had been so giddy about their good fortune when Raena offered them the chance to become pirates. She’d been focused on preparing for her showdown with Thallian, which she hadn’t expected to survive. The rest of them had been exploring the parameters of their new ship. Nobody thought about the open account they left behind.
    “Maybe we can settle the Raptor ’s docking fees from here without admitting it’s the same ship,” he said.
    “I’ll check.”
    “Do they plan to take her back to Kai?”
    “At least to stand trial for the kidnapping.”
    “I don’t know if you and I can go back to Kai, after we disrupted the jetpack race,” Mykah said. “Are they likely to charge us for that, too?”
    “I don’t know,” Coni said. “I’ll find out.”
    *   *   *
    When the jailers processed her into the local hoosegow, they took her Stinger and its holster without comment, but her stone knives puzzled them. That kind of low-tech weaponry was apparently a new thing on this pleasure planet. Raena had to surrender her brand-new boots, too.
    After that, they ran all the standard identification tests. Raena hadn’t been arrested since the Imperial days, but she had faith her new identity would hold up, since it had gotten her in and out of Capital City. Once they ran the medical scanners and found out her body was only twenty, no one would believe that she really was the Imperial assassin who shared her name.
    Security in Lautan’s planetary jail was adequate, if you weren’t used to busting out of Imperial prisons. Raena played with the idea, but her new ID was clear so far. She decided