The Complete Razia Series, page 79
***
Using her Lauren Daily credentials and waiting until after the sun had gone down on D-882, Razia parked her ship in one of the far-out parking stations. She felt a twinge of guilt when Sage had called her, and his message was a reminder that he wanted to know how she was feeling, and to take care of herself.
But her guilt disappeared as soon as she was off her ship. Everything was beautiful to Razia, even the grimy and disgusting shuttle system. She rode around at the back end of the transport shuttle for a while until she found a station that was both isolated and had a working lift so she wouldn't have to walk up several stories' worth of broken escalators. Her sense of smell was still overactive, but the trash and dust smell was welcome instead of nauseating. She placed a hand on her stomach and kept to the shadows between the streetlights, ears alert for the sound of footsteps approaching.
Most of the women she was looking for were still working in the main pirate city—which might explain how they ended up pregnant in the first place, though Razia couldn't very well talk. She had mapped out a walking path that would take her from one end of the city to the next, and just hoped her lower back wouldn't protest all the time on her feet.
Her first stop was a bar in the middle of the city. Bypassing the front door, she slipped in through the backroom and cracked the door into the main barroom. She checked the few patrons—most of them were old and grizzled, their shirts too grimy to be pirates. She stepped away from the door and pulled her hair back into a bun. She considered adding her glasses as well, but decided against it.
Adjusting her jacket over her stomach, she slipped through the door as quietly as possible, keeping to the wall until she reached the bar. The bartender was Razia's intended target, an older woman with graying red hair and a cigarette dangling from her lip. Razia tried not to cough at the smell, and slouched when she sat down on the barstool.
"What'll it be?" the woman asked.
"I actually have some questions to ask you," Razia replied quietly. "Did you have a son about twenty-four years ago?"
She nodded. "Yeah. What about it?"
"Do you keep in touch with him?"
"A bit."
Razia wished Lizbeth was here; she was always better at these interrogations than Razia. "So…tell me about him?"
"Why? You know 'im."
"I do?"
"Yeah, ol' Roy's a good boy. Bit big on the ego. Gets that from me, you know."
Razia blinked and realized she was, in fact, looking at a female version of Royden Relleck—complete with mustache. She slouched a little more, hoping to hide the bulge. "I didn't mean…sorry. Was looking for someone else."
She snorted. "Don't know why he was all smitten with you. Ain't nothing special about you. Too small for him."
"Right, well, this has been great."
Thanking her lucky stars, yet again, that she was not pregnant with Relleck's kid, Razia made a quick escape out the same back door.
Her goal had been to try to speak with all ten women that first night, but after riding around in the shuttle for way too long, she found herself tired so she returned to her ship. She hadn't realized how much actually moving about was exhausting now that she was carrying around an extra few pounds.
Not only that, but trying to keep hidden from a city teeming with pirates was another challenge itself.
The second night, she chose a docking station a little closer in and found the head maid at one of the cheesy hotels. But that was a dead-end in more ways than one—the woman said her son had died from illness when he was ten.
The next night, Razia met with a lovely woman who owned a coffee shop, though the woman's swollen ankles prevented her from working too much. She had invited Razia inside and made her the best cup of tea Razia had ever tasted ("I drank it all the time when I was pregnant"). The woman told Razia that her son had gone on to enjoy a great life as a lawyer for a large corporation, and showed Razia a photo of a handsome man with gleaming teeth. The mother had been able to secure him a new alias since most law schools in the capital system didn't accept children from D-882. They spoke more about Razia's pregnancy, and the woman gave Razia a big bag of loose-leaf tea to take with her.
Razia couldn't even make herself leave her ship for another three days after that; the exhaustion of walking and moving was too much. Besides, she was fast approaching another visit with Bianco, and she had to leave her investigation for a week while she tended to that.
When she returned to D-882, she was even more worn down than usual. Bianco said that she was now in her third trimester. Razia knew that if she wanted to get Opli out of the way, she'd have to do it soon before she was too big to climb her ladder and fly her own ship.
She hurried through two quick meetings with women on her first night back on D-882, and was going back to lie down on her ship when she heard voices.
"I swear to you, Sage, she ain't here."
"Well, I have no idea where she is, and I wouldn't put it past her to show up to help out. Are you sure that you checked both her accounts?"
With a gasp, Razia dove into an alley and flattened herself against the wall. Ganon and Sobal walked by her, talking to Sage on the mini-computer.
"I've been watching her accounts," Sobal said. "She hasn't made a transaction in two and a half weeks."
"I bet she created a new alias, then. Damn her."
"Why are you so worried about her anyway?" Ganon asked. "She's not worried about you at all."
Lyssa furrowed her brow and swallowed the need to refute that statement.
"I'm nearly finished here, and then I'll take over. There's just a few more things to do. Just, please, if you see her, don't…" She waited to see if he'd say anything about the bug, but he didn't. "Just tell her to consider what she's doing."
"Consider it? I am considering it, you jackass," she muttered under her breath. The bug moved in agreement. "Yeah, see? We're being careful."
To her horror, her mini-computer lit up with Sage's face. She jumped and the device popped out of her hands, vibrating loudly as she tried to grab it.
"I think I hear something," Sobal said.
She gasped and pulled the mini-computer to her chest, covering her mouth with her free hand.
"Nah, don't worry about it," Ganon said. "We've got to go through this list. Never thought I'd want to know who anybody's mother was before."
Their voices died and Lyssa breathed out a sigh of relief. She looked to her phone and saw the frantic messages from Sage piling up as the ones before went unanswered.
Where are you
Why haven't you made a transaction
Are you all right
Lyssa, please answer me
I'm getting pissed off now
Tell me where you are
She tapped out a message. I'm busy, leave me alone. She winced and added, And I'm not doing anything stupid.
"Lies, Lyssa. Pure lies," she muttered to herself as she slid her mini-computer back in her pocket and hurried down the street. She needed to get this list of names finished that night.
***
The sky was pink when she reached the tenth and final name on her list. She arched her back and groaned, promising herself a long, hot shower when she got back to her ship. She'd had a few close calls, even running into a very drunk Silas Brendler, who said she needed to lay off the desserts for a while. Hopefully, if anyone asked about it, she could pass it off as a hallucination.
Her last name was a woman living in the not-so-great part of the pirate city. Which, for a pirate city, was saying something. This section was where the poorest of the poor lived, where all the waitresses, barkeeps, and bouncers rested their heads when not dealing with the top pirates in the universe. Based on the trash piling up in the alleys and the long walk to get there, she knew the pirate runners didn't care much for this side of town and the services extending this far were meager at best. She placed a hand on her stomach, a twinge of worry eating at her for all the kids born there who'd never get out. No small wonder so many pirates came from this planet; it was the only way they could escape the cycle of poverty.
She craned her head at the building. The woman's account was sparingly used, which was why it had piqued Lyssa's interest more than the others. She rarely paid for rent, which meant someone else was paying it for her. What money she did receive from a few odd jobs was spent on booze.
Razia pushed open the broken doors and gagged from the smell of half-cooked food and overflowing trash. The floor was sticky with orange dirt and mud, and when she reached the old elevator, a few presses of the button showed it was out of order.
The bug was moving again, perhaps feeding on Razia's unease, and she pressed a hand to the spot. "Ssh, it'll be fine, I'm sure." She spied an open door and a set of stairs, and plodded over. The woman was on the fifth floor, if her receipts were any indication, and so Razia began to climb slowly, listening for footsteps behind her.
The fifth floor smelled as putrid as the rest of them, and Razia had to pull her shirt over her mouth to breathe. The hallway was lined with wooden doors with askew numbers, and when she passed by the garbage chute, it was overflowing. At the end of the hall, one of two doors marked the apartment she was looking for.
She reached the door and knocked softly. "Hello? Anyone home?"
She waited a few minutes then set to work on the lock. She wasn't an expert pick, but the lock was so flimsy she was able to get through it in no time. The door swung open to more darkness, and she groped for a light switch. Flipping it on and off did nothing.
"Hello?" she called again and listened for the sounds of lift. She walked in a few feet and nearly tripped over a glass bottle. Using the light from the hallway, she gingerly picked up the bottle. Whiskey. The apartment was littered with trash.
A snort drew her attention to a dark shape in the corner. She shuffled forward, kicking away more bottles and trash, and could make out the form of a woman sleeping on the couch, her mouth open and another bottle in her hand.
"Huh," Razia said, stepping back. She poked the woman with her boot, but the woman simply snorted and turned around. The bottle fell from her hand and landed with a thud on the ground, brown liquid pouring onto the stained carpet.
Razia looked around the dark apartment. She wasn't going to get any information from this woman tonight. Even if she had light, there was nothing but trash and old food in this place. Finding a birth certificates or signs of Opli would be be nearly impossible.
She paused by the woman once more, feeling a twinge of pity. This was someone's mother. Razia rubbed her own stomach for a moment, reminding herself that she was doing the right thing letting Sage take the bug.
"What in Leveman's Great Vortex are you doing here?"
A smile curled on her face. "Jackpot."
Opli stepped into the apartment, looking more livid than she'd ever seen him. Razia kept to the shadows, thankful he couldn't see her shape, as she braced herself for whatever he might do.
When he spoke next, he seemed to have recovered from his shock. "I wondered where you'd been all this time."
"Been busy doing a little research on you," she replied, forcing her hand to stay at her side, instead of to the bug, who was moving like crazy. "Not very much fun when the shoe is on the other foot, is it?" She glanced at the woman on the couch and swallowed her pity. That was what had got all of the pirates arrested by Jukin. She wouldn't make that mistake again. "I take it this is your mother, huh?"
He said nothing.
"Why the pirate vendetta, then?" Razia asked. "What's this all about, really?"
Opli's eyes flashed for a moment, but he recovered. "You sure you want to continue down this path, Lyssa? It's very dangerous to expose secrets when you have your own to protect."
She narrowed her eyes defiantly. "Do your worst."
He slowly approached her, and she backed up, accidentally stepping into the light. Horrified, she glanced up at Opli, whose mouth had opened and was slowly forming a pleased smile.
"Very stupid of you indeed, Lyssa," he said with a soft laugh. "No wonder you've been so absent. And Teon! Well, when's the wedding?"
She swallowed her nerves. "Don't think this changes anything."
"I don't think it will at all," Opli said. "Except now your self-destruction will be oh so much more fun to watch." The woman on the couch murmured, and Opli's attention shifted her, concern on his face. "Run along, Lyssa. And do me a favor, please be a better mother to your child than mine was to me." He glanced at her. "If that's even possible for you."
Heart pounding, Razia scurried out of the apartment and down the stairs, not stopping until she was three blocks away. The bug was kicking and thrashing, and she had to stop in an alley to calm both of them down.
"Sssh, sssh," Razia whispered, wishing she had someone to calm her own nerves the way she was calming the bug's. After a good few minutes, the movement quieted and Razia gently held herself until it ceased and the bug went back to sleep. "Good bug."
She leaned against the brick wall in the alley and let out a long, loud breath. She was furious with herself for making such a dumb decision—so what if she'd found Opli's mother? Now Opli had even more dirt on her, which he could exploit at any time. Should she even continue her investigation?
She looked at her mini-computer; Sage had sent her a few more messages.
Call me when you get a chance
She closed her eyes and called him, not even caring if he knew where she was.
When his face appeared on the screen, his bright smile dampened into an annoyed scowl. "I knew you were on '882."
"Congratulations, you know me too well," she said quietly.
"What's wrong?"
She snorted. "See?"
"What's wrong?" he repeated.
"I just…I need to get away for a while." And I miss you. "You were right, I shouldn't have come here."
"You're in luck, because I was just about to ask you to come see me," Sage said. "I want to show you something."
"What?"
"I'm done with my project."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sage had given her his exact coordinates in a system six hours out from D-882. There were a few populated planets, but Lyssa's destination was a moon circling one of the gas planets.
She double-checked the numbers. She was headed straight for the middle of the ocean on the moon. But as she drew closer to the spot, she saw one speck of land. It grew into an island with a single structure on it and a very visible dock with a small ship already resting on a large concrete pad.
"Since when did he buy another ship?" Lyssa muttered. "And a house?"
She landed hers next to his and waddled back to the ladder. It was getting to the point where she could barely grasp the rungs without hitting her stomach. She'd just marked thirty weeks on the calendar; ten more to go.
Which meant she hadn't seen Sage—actually seen him in person—for nearly three months. Despite herself, she was a little excited. The bug danced in her stomach; this, for once, was a good kind of anxious.
She paused before walking out of her bridge and picked up the ultrasound photo that now seemed to have a permanent spot on her dashboard. She fingered the edges and stuffed it in her back pocket before rushing to the back of her ship and down the ladder.
Her heart fluttered madly as her ramp lowered.
There he stood, and she'd never seen anything so beautiful. His skin was golden, his hair even lighter than normal. He wore a simple white shirt and khaki shorts. But more than anything, the smile on his face sent her jitters into overdrive. He looked happy—genuinely, unbelievably happy to see her.
"Whoa! You're so big!" He stretched out his hands as if he wanted to grab her belly, but he kept his distance.
"What is this place?" Lyssa asked, coming to join him on the wooden dock that connected the house with the concrete pad.
"My new house," Sage said, turning to look behind him. "I bought this moon."
She nearly tripped over a slat of wood on the dock. "You bought this whole moon?"
"Yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his head.
"When did you do that?"
"I bought it from Dorst at the Academy after our planet excavation. He said he'd been unable to sell it because it wasn't suited for agriculture or anything like that. I was really lucky to find this island—took me a few days of circling."
She glanced over at his new ship. "And when did you buy the ship?"
"Around the same time, since I didn't want to leave the guys stranded on '882." He looked out at the ocean, blue and green and white churning in front of him. "I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner, but building a house was a lot harder than I thought. We just finished it a few days ago. Let me tell you, trying to get materials and equipment here was a pain—"
"So why didn't you just buy a plot of land on a residential planet?" Lyssa asked. "Sage, you should have asked me before you made such an idiotic decision. Supplying a whole planet is way more difficult than you'd think." She'd thought about doing it herself, one day in the distant future when she wanted to retire. But the sheer difficulty of basic things like food and supplies made her less inclined to do it.
"Oh, I got the lecture from Dorst, don't worry," he said with a small smile. "But it's worth it, to me, to be alone out here. This island is nearly ten miles around—that'd be quite a way to run, you know?"
She sighed longingly; she hadn't run in ages.
"Come inside."
She followed him up a wooden staircase and through a set of glass doors into an expansive living room. Rustic wood covered the floors, and white, gleaming cabinets sparkled from the kitchen. The living room furniture was soft leather couches and a coffee table that looked made of driftwood. She spotted a small room off to the left and strolled over, opening the double doors to reveal an office of sorts.
"This is nice," she said, running her hands along the computer setup.
"So predictable," Sage said, leaning against the doorframe. "Six bedrooms and you head straight for the office."
She sat down in the black leather chair, running her hands along the three monitors. "Definitely a level up from that pathetic system you had on your ship." She tapped on the keyboard and chewed on her lip—the pirate web was already logged in on the far left, the middle was dedicated to the Universal Bank search screen, and the right was an open notepad.
Using her Lauren Daily credentials and waiting until after the sun had gone down on D-882, Razia parked her ship in one of the far-out parking stations. She felt a twinge of guilt when Sage had called her, and his message was a reminder that he wanted to know how she was feeling, and to take care of herself.
But her guilt disappeared as soon as she was off her ship. Everything was beautiful to Razia, even the grimy and disgusting shuttle system. She rode around at the back end of the transport shuttle for a while until she found a station that was both isolated and had a working lift so she wouldn't have to walk up several stories' worth of broken escalators. Her sense of smell was still overactive, but the trash and dust smell was welcome instead of nauseating. She placed a hand on her stomach and kept to the shadows between the streetlights, ears alert for the sound of footsteps approaching.
Most of the women she was looking for were still working in the main pirate city—which might explain how they ended up pregnant in the first place, though Razia couldn't very well talk. She had mapped out a walking path that would take her from one end of the city to the next, and just hoped her lower back wouldn't protest all the time on her feet.
Her first stop was a bar in the middle of the city. Bypassing the front door, she slipped in through the backroom and cracked the door into the main barroom. She checked the few patrons—most of them were old and grizzled, their shirts too grimy to be pirates. She stepped away from the door and pulled her hair back into a bun. She considered adding her glasses as well, but decided against it.
Adjusting her jacket over her stomach, she slipped through the door as quietly as possible, keeping to the wall until she reached the bar. The bartender was Razia's intended target, an older woman with graying red hair and a cigarette dangling from her lip. Razia tried not to cough at the smell, and slouched when she sat down on the barstool.
"What'll it be?" the woman asked.
"I actually have some questions to ask you," Razia replied quietly. "Did you have a son about twenty-four years ago?"
She nodded. "Yeah. What about it?"
"Do you keep in touch with him?"
"A bit."
Razia wished Lizbeth was here; she was always better at these interrogations than Razia. "So…tell me about him?"
"Why? You know 'im."
"I do?"
"Yeah, ol' Roy's a good boy. Bit big on the ego. Gets that from me, you know."
Razia blinked and realized she was, in fact, looking at a female version of Royden Relleck—complete with mustache. She slouched a little more, hoping to hide the bulge. "I didn't mean…sorry. Was looking for someone else."
She snorted. "Don't know why he was all smitten with you. Ain't nothing special about you. Too small for him."
"Right, well, this has been great."
Thanking her lucky stars, yet again, that she was not pregnant with Relleck's kid, Razia made a quick escape out the same back door.
Her goal had been to try to speak with all ten women that first night, but after riding around in the shuttle for way too long, she found herself tired so she returned to her ship. She hadn't realized how much actually moving about was exhausting now that she was carrying around an extra few pounds.
Not only that, but trying to keep hidden from a city teeming with pirates was another challenge itself.
The second night, she chose a docking station a little closer in and found the head maid at one of the cheesy hotels. But that was a dead-end in more ways than one—the woman said her son had died from illness when he was ten.
The next night, Razia met with a lovely woman who owned a coffee shop, though the woman's swollen ankles prevented her from working too much. She had invited Razia inside and made her the best cup of tea Razia had ever tasted ("I drank it all the time when I was pregnant"). The woman told Razia that her son had gone on to enjoy a great life as a lawyer for a large corporation, and showed Razia a photo of a handsome man with gleaming teeth. The mother had been able to secure him a new alias since most law schools in the capital system didn't accept children from D-882. They spoke more about Razia's pregnancy, and the woman gave Razia a big bag of loose-leaf tea to take with her.
Razia couldn't even make herself leave her ship for another three days after that; the exhaustion of walking and moving was too much. Besides, she was fast approaching another visit with Bianco, and she had to leave her investigation for a week while she tended to that.
When she returned to D-882, she was even more worn down than usual. Bianco said that she was now in her third trimester. Razia knew that if she wanted to get Opli out of the way, she'd have to do it soon before she was too big to climb her ladder and fly her own ship.
She hurried through two quick meetings with women on her first night back on D-882, and was going back to lie down on her ship when she heard voices.
"I swear to you, Sage, she ain't here."
"Well, I have no idea where she is, and I wouldn't put it past her to show up to help out. Are you sure that you checked both her accounts?"
With a gasp, Razia dove into an alley and flattened herself against the wall. Ganon and Sobal walked by her, talking to Sage on the mini-computer.
"I've been watching her accounts," Sobal said. "She hasn't made a transaction in two and a half weeks."
"I bet she created a new alias, then. Damn her."
"Why are you so worried about her anyway?" Ganon asked. "She's not worried about you at all."
Lyssa furrowed her brow and swallowed the need to refute that statement.
"I'm nearly finished here, and then I'll take over. There's just a few more things to do. Just, please, if you see her, don't…" She waited to see if he'd say anything about the bug, but he didn't. "Just tell her to consider what she's doing."
"Consider it? I am considering it, you jackass," she muttered under her breath. The bug moved in agreement. "Yeah, see? We're being careful."
To her horror, her mini-computer lit up with Sage's face. She jumped and the device popped out of her hands, vibrating loudly as she tried to grab it.
"I think I hear something," Sobal said.
She gasped and pulled the mini-computer to her chest, covering her mouth with her free hand.
"Nah, don't worry about it," Ganon said. "We've got to go through this list. Never thought I'd want to know who anybody's mother was before."
Their voices died and Lyssa breathed out a sigh of relief. She looked to her phone and saw the frantic messages from Sage piling up as the ones before went unanswered.
Where are you
Why haven't you made a transaction
Are you all right
Lyssa, please answer me
I'm getting pissed off now
Tell me where you are
She tapped out a message. I'm busy, leave me alone. She winced and added, And I'm not doing anything stupid.
"Lies, Lyssa. Pure lies," she muttered to herself as she slid her mini-computer back in her pocket and hurried down the street. She needed to get this list of names finished that night.
***
The sky was pink when she reached the tenth and final name on her list. She arched her back and groaned, promising herself a long, hot shower when she got back to her ship. She'd had a few close calls, even running into a very drunk Silas Brendler, who said she needed to lay off the desserts for a while. Hopefully, if anyone asked about it, she could pass it off as a hallucination.
Her last name was a woman living in the not-so-great part of the pirate city. Which, for a pirate city, was saying something. This section was where the poorest of the poor lived, where all the waitresses, barkeeps, and bouncers rested their heads when not dealing with the top pirates in the universe. Based on the trash piling up in the alleys and the long walk to get there, she knew the pirate runners didn't care much for this side of town and the services extending this far were meager at best. She placed a hand on her stomach, a twinge of worry eating at her for all the kids born there who'd never get out. No small wonder so many pirates came from this planet; it was the only way they could escape the cycle of poverty.
She craned her head at the building. The woman's account was sparingly used, which was why it had piqued Lyssa's interest more than the others. She rarely paid for rent, which meant someone else was paying it for her. What money she did receive from a few odd jobs was spent on booze.
Razia pushed open the broken doors and gagged from the smell of half-cooked food and overflowing trash. The floor was sticky with orange dirt and mud, and when she reached the old elevator, a few presses of the button showed it was out of order.
The bug was moving again, perhaps feeding on Razia's unease, and she pressed a hand to the spot. "Ssh, it'll be fine, I'm sure." She spied an open door and a set of stairs, and plodded over. The woman was on the fifth floor, if her receipts were any indication, and so Razia began to climb slowly, listening for footsteps behind her.
The fifth floor smelled as putrid as the rest of them, and Razia had to pull her shirt over her mouth to breathe. The hallway was lined with wooden doors with askew numbers, and when she passed by the garbage chute, it was overflowing. At the end of the hall, one of two doors marked the apartment she was looking for.
She reached the door and knocked softly. "Hello? Anyone home?"
She waited a few minutes then set to work on the lock. She wasn't an expert pick, but the lock was so flimsy she was able to get through it in no time. The door swung open to more darkness, and she groped for a light switch. Flipping it on and off did nothing.
"Hello?" she called again and listened for the sounds of lift. She walked in a few feet and nearly tripped over a glass bottle. Using the light from the hallway, she gingerly picked up the bottle. Whiskey. The apartment was littered with trash.
A snort drew her attention to a dark shape in the corner. She shuffled forward, kicking away more bottles and trash, and could make out the form of a woman sleeping on the couch, her mouth open and another bottle in her hand.
"Huh," Razia said, stepping back. She poked the woman with her boot, but the woman simply snorted and turned around. The bottle fell from her hand and landed with a thud on the ground, brown liquid pouring onto the stained carpet.
Razia looked around the dark apartment. She wasn't going to get any information from this woman tonight. Even if she had light, there was nothing but trash and old food in this place. Finding a birth certificates or signs of Opli would be be nearly impossible.
She paused by the woman once more, feeling a twinge of pity. This was someone's mother. Razia rubbed her own stomach for a moment, reminding herself that she was doing the right thing letting Sage take the bug.
"What in Leveman's Great Vortex are you doing here?"
A smile curled on her face. "Jackpot."
Opli stepped into the apartment, looking more livid than she'd ever seen him. Razia kept to the shadows, thankful he couldn't see her shape, as she braced herself for whatever he might do.
When he spoke next, he seemed to have recovered from his shock. "I wondered where you'd been all this time."
"Been busy doing a little research on you," she replied, forcing her hand to stay at her side, instead of to the bug, who was moving like crazy. "Not very much fun when the shoe is on the other foot, is it?" She glanced at the woman on the couch and swallowed her pity. That was what had got all of the pirates arrested by Jukin. She wouldn't make that mistake again. "I take it this is your mother, huh?"
He said nothing.
"Why the pirate vendetta, then?" Razia asked. "What's this all about, really?"
Opli's eyes flashed for a moment, but he recovered. "You sure you want to continue down this path, Lyssa? It's very dangerous to expose secrets when you have your own to protect."
She narrowed her eyes defiantly. "Do your worst."
He slowly approached her, and she backed up, accidentally stepping into the light. Horrified, she glanced up at Opli, whose mouth had opened and was slowly forming a pleased smile.
"Very stupid of you indeed, Lyssa," he said with a soft laugh. "No wonder you've been so absent. And Teon! Well, when's the wedding?"
She swallowed her nerves. "Don't think this changes anything."
"I don't think it will at all," Opli said. "Except now your self-destruction will be oh so much more fun to watch." The woman on the couch murmured, and Opli's attention shifted her, concern on his face. "Run along, Lyssa. And do me a favor, please be a better mother to your child than mine was to me." He glanced at her. "If that's even possible for you."
Heart pounding, Razia scurried out of the apartment and down the stairs, not stopping until she was three blocks away. The bug was kicking and thrashing, and she had to stop in an alley to calm both of them down.
"Sssh, sssh," Razia whispered, wishing she had someone to calm her own nerves the way she was calming the bug's. After a good few minutes, the movement quieted and Razia gently held herself until it ceased and the bug went back to sleep. "Good bug."
She leaned against the brick wall in the alley and let out a long, loud breath. She was furious with herself for making such a dumb decision—so what if she'd found Opli's mother? Now Opli had even more dirt on her, which he could exploit at any time. Should she even continue her investigation?
She looked at her mini-computer; Sage had sent her a few more messages.
Call me when you get a chance
She closed her eyes and called him, not even caring if he knew where she was.
When his face appeared on the screen, his bright smile dampened into an annoyed scowl. "I knew you were on '882."
"Congratulations, you know me too well," she said quietly.
"What's wrong?"
She snorted. "See?"
"What's wrong?" he repeated.
"I just…I need to get away for a while." And I miss you. "You were right, I shouldn't have come here."
"You're in luck, because I was just about to ask you to come see me," Sage said. "I want to show you something."
"What?"
"I'm done with my project."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sage had given her his exact coordinates in a system six hours out from D-882. There were a few populated planets, but Lyssa's destination was a moon circling one of the gas planets.
She double-checked the numbers. She was headed straight for the middle of the ocean on the moon. But as she drew closer to the spot, she saw one speck of land. It grew into an island with a single structure on it and a very visible dock with a small ship already resting on a large concrete pad.
"Since when did he buy another ship?" Lyssa muttered. "And a house?"
She landed hers next to his and waddled back to the ladder. It was getting to the point where she could barely grasp the rungs without hitting her stomach. She'd just marked thirty weeks on the calendar; ten more to go.
Which meant she hadn't seen Sage—actually seen him in person—for nearly three months. Despite herself, she was a little excited. The bug danced in her stomach; this, for once, was a good kind of anxious.
She paused before walking out of her bridge and picked up the ultrasound photo that now seemed to have a permanent spot on her dashboard. She fingered the edges and stuffed it in her back pocket before rushing to the back of her ship and down the ladder.
Her heart fluttered madly as her ramp lowered.
There he stood, and she'd never seen anything so beautiful. His skin was golden, his hair even lighter than normal. He wore a simple white shirt and khaki shorts. But more than anything, the smile on his face sent her jitters into overdrive. He looked happy—genuinely, unbelievably happy to see her.
"Whoa! You're so big!" He stretched out his hands as if he wanted to grab her belly, but he kept his distance.
"What is this place?" Lyssa asked, coming to join him on the wooden dock that connected the house with the concrete pad.
"My new house," Sage said, turning to look behind him. "I bought this moon."
She nearly tripped over a slat of wood on the dock. "You bought this whole moon?"
"Yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his head.
"When did you do that?"
"I bought it from Dorst at the Academy after our planet excavation. He said he'd been unable to sell it because it wasn't suited for agriculture or anything like that. I was really lucky to find this island—took me a few days of circling."
She glanced over at his new ship. "And when did you buy the ship?"
"Around the same time, since I didn't want to leave the guys stranded on '882." He looked out at the ocean, blue and green and white churning in front of him. "I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner, but building a house was a lot harder than I thought. We just finished it a few days ago. Let me tell you, trying to get materials and equipment here was a pain—"
"So why didn't you just buy a plot of land on a residential planet?" Lyssa asked. "Sage, you should have asked me before you made such an idiotic decision. Supplying a whole planet is way more difficult than you'd think." She'd thought about doing it herself, one day in the distant future when she wanted to retire. But the sheer difficulty of basic things like food and supplies made her less inclined to do it.
"Oh, I got the lecture from Dorst, don't worry," he said with a small smile. "But it's worth it, to me, to be alone out here. This island is nearly ten miles around—that'd be quite a way to run, you know?"
She sighed longingly; she hadn't run in ages.
"Come inside."
She followed him up a wooden staircase and through a set of glass doors into an expansive living room. Rustic wood covered the floors, and white, gleaming cabinets sparkled from the kitchen. The living room furniture was soft leather couches and a coffee table that looked made of driftwood. She spotted a small room off to the left and strolled over, opening the double doors to reveal an office of sorts.
"This is nice," she said, running her hands along the computer setup.
"So predictable," Sage said, leaning against the doorframe. "Six bedrooms and you head straight for the office."
She sat down in the black leather chair, running her hands along the three monitors. "Definitely a level up from that pathetic system you had on your ship." She tapped on the keyboard and chewed on her lip—the pirate web was already logged in on the far left, the middle was dedicated to the Universal Bank search screen, and the right was an open notepad.
