“Damn them all.” Iggy drummed fingers against the console and glowered at the view screen. Currently, it displayed a peaceful star field. No pirates in sight—for the moment. “He can’t get near the adults. I’ve given orders to shoot him down if he tries, but…”
“But he knows enough about your operation to take it down with him.” Zora sat in the co-pilot’s seat and watched his face. “Doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Damn.”
“I could try to move my people.” His expression, the lines around his eyes told a different story. Relocating an entire planet of illegal clones without getting caught might be more than their Emperor could manage. Finding them a new world to hide on, she imagined, would be close to impossible.
“No. We need to keep the clones safe. Risking them can’t be an option.”
“But giving the babies to Zander--.”
“Also not an option.” She’d seen the asshole’s zoo, and she wasn’t about to trust him with anything living, in particular not her slug babies. “Any chance you can talk him out of it?”
“Not when there’s profit to be had, and we’re carrying a fortune’s worth. I can’t see Zander letting that go.”
“He’s a piece of work, this cousin of yours.”
“It comes from his father’s side.” He curled his mouth into a subtle grin, and his eyes sparked.
Zora nodded and sank her fingernails into the arms of her chair. She imagined clawing off his shirt, sitting on his lap and…
Heavy steps rattled the mesh floor. Rook ducked back through the bridge entrance with Murray a half step behind him. Neither of them looked like a person who’d just come up with a brilliant idea to get them out of this mess.
“Cyrus 2 is out.” Murray shook her head. “Zander’s filed a complaint with the Gen-fed, and until it’s resolved, they won’t even give us a landing permit.”
“What was the next stop?” Ignatius spun his chair to face them, and all three discussed the itinerary. How many Gen-fed planets would allow them to offload cargo with a complaint attached to it? Few would even let them dock. Zander’s thorn twisted in their side, and each second they spend debating it put them in further danger of being boarded. That was his next move. She knew it, and she guessed Iggy knew it too, but with Murray frowning at her between sentences, Zora didn’t feel like being the one to point it out.
“So long as we have a fortune in slugs in our cargo bay,” Iggy went there before she had to. “Zander isn’t going to let us out of this. He’ll shoot to disable next time, and then we might as well just hand him the keys.”
“Does he have any way of knowing how many there are?” Murray bit her lip and looked ready to burst into tears. “Maybe we can hide some of them.”
“The incubators are too bulky to move much. We might get one or two into our cabins, but we’d have to pray they didn’t search the ship.” Iggy nodded. “Still, it’s a step in the right direction. Then, we can try to deliver as many as possible.”
“Mercur Omega,” Murray blurted and grinned like she’d just invented Syrillian Fizzers. “They won’t side with Gen-fed, not with the animal cruelty charges on Zander’s record. They agreed to take several thousand eggs. I might even be able to convince them to take more, maybe even offer sanctuary for the whole clutch until we sort things out.”
“You are brilliant.” Rook gleamed at his wife until Zora felt like barfing.
“Good. Great plan, Mur.” Zora flicked the toggles and brought up a sector map. It was a pretty good idea, but…
“It might work,” Iggy agreed, but the lines didn’t vanish from his expression. “Mercur is farther than I’d like, but if we hustle--”
“If we hustle.” Zora found her own worries mirrored on his face. Rook and Murray could relax in idealistic optimism all they wanted, the emperor and the harlot knew the score. That was a hell of a lot of space to cross with a pirate on their tail. “Maybe we can get there before Zander works out where we’re going.”
If the jackass worked that out, they might as well kiss the slug babies goodbye. Of course, if she knew pirates—and she did—at that point they’d be lucky if any of them survived long enough to care.
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