Maeven Hall hit the comm button to talk to the docking authorities, if one could call them that, on Hawk’s Hideout. She looked over the docking bay of the decrepit station skeptically. “This is Siren’s Song. Our manifest number is 8541, units of cargo for delivery 21.”

She waited patiently. “You’re cleared for docking in Bay 40. Have a nice visit, Captain.” There was probably laughing throughout the control room each time they said that. The station barely held together. She bet the place had been overloaded with quantum tech to make room for all the outlaws it held these days. If you left alive, it would be a nice visit.

The Siren’s automatic docking AI was up now, so Maeven left the AI to it. She’d emptied most of the hold back in Ethan. Her footsteps rang out on the titanium flooring as she moved through each of the self-contained vaults within the hold looking for Grimm. Her new mechanic seemed nothing if not diligent. He worked on the ship non-stop. He’d be doing something in the hold to prepare for dock.

Maeven steadied herself as the clamps caught the ship. It always created a sensation like sailing on choppy seas. She knew the little things about her ship already, but it wouldn’t be long at this rate and the Siren would get a makeover. They needed hull and armor improvements, as well as a larger hold, if she intended to obtain security.

She intended to be safe. She’d never again have anyone uproot her life by force and plant her where she didn’t belong. Once she had enough credits and security, maybe some power, any galaxy was hers for the taking. She would head out to the Anvil for good and set up shop, but that wouldn’t happen tomorrow. She roughly pulled her mind back to the tasks at hand.

“Grimm!” Metallic banging followed by Anvillian cursing let her know Grimm was in vault 4. “You ready to disembark?”

“I’m not going anywhere”, he replied. She rolled her eyes. He hadn’t left the ship yet, not in the three weeks he’d been on the Siren.

“Grimm, you’re going to go crazy on this ship. Get off. Now.”

His sandy-blond, traditionally braided head poked out with a sour look aimed in her direction, or at least where he’d thought she was. He corrected himself quickly. She smiled. “I don’t think getting off on an outlaw station is taking time off.”

“We won’t be here that long. I need some help collecting from these idiots anyway. You remember the last time I had to collect the Asher fees from a pirate?”

Grimm looked amused as he wiped his hands on his greasy rag. “Now, that was a good time!”

“I had to shoot him, Grimm. It took hours to outrun that idiot’s marauder.” She put her hands on her hips sternly. “Come on. I don’t want to order you off this ship but I will.”

Grimm sighed forlornly and gathered his gear. He kept things neat no matter what. “All right, but I’m back on as soon as the payment’s collected.” She knew something about leaving the ship made Grimm uneasy, and that made Maeven uneasy. She was pretty sure he hadn’t told her something, but out here, in the Sphere, people didn’t share their life stories. In fact, most didn’t talk about how they got here or what they had been before they crossed the almighty Core government. It was an unspoken law, and therefore Grimm had the right to keep his secrets. She just hoped they weren’t dangerous.

****


Walking through Hawk’s felt like balancing on a high wire. You didn’t want to look anyone directly in the eye, but you couldn’t look like you avoided it either. Mainly, she looked at Grimm as they headed for the Asher office on the promenade. Every planet and station had a central promenade to receive offworlders. Some were just safer than others.

The Asher office sat dead center of the small station and filled to overflowing with disreputable captains waiting on payment. She and Grimm found seats next to the wall with a possibility of cover. One never knew when one needed cover in a crowd like this.

“Krushak, I want off this station. You transfer my payment now, or I’ll fire your brother and he can work for you!” The boisterous pirate at the desk looked chastened, even afraid. Must be some brother, she thought.

“Jack. Come on. You know how slow these transactions can go.” Krushak didn’t seem to believe his own lie.

“You guarantee the payment. Pay me!” Maeven could only see the broad back of the man, but it was obvious he was an outlaw from his appearance. He tried to blend far too much. In the variety to be found out in the Sphere, culture defined everything. People clung desperately to their pasts, probably because most had them ripped away by one faction or another. So they dressed as they had. Spoke as they had. Everyone she’d met appeared to live in some before-time, as if now wasn’t happening to them.

The pirate got his payment. As he turned, Maeven met his gaze by accident. Her breath caught because for a moment she thought Jax stood before her. Slowly, she realized there were differences, subtle ones. His nose was too long. His jaw too square, but so much like Jax!

“You know me, Candy?” His voice lowered as he approached. Maeven shook her head because she couldn’t talk.21

“You”. She nearly choked on the word. “You look like someone.” He narrowed his gray blue eyes to look at her more closely. She felt Grimm tensing beside her.

“Who, Candy?” He reached a hand up to slide it sensuously around her neck. Maeven should have pulled away, but she felt like she’d been hit with a numbing beam. “Let me guess. A husband? A lover?” He growled the last word and pulled her lips to his own. Maeven finally reacted, only a split second after a passionate kiss from a stranger. She pushed hard at the big man, and Grimm pulled his pistol. The hissing sound of the charge caused the room to go silent.

The pirate touched his tongue to his lower lip. “A lover then.”

“You’ll want to go on, Crah-ling. Your ship awaits.” Grimm’s voice caused shivers down her back. He sounded so. . . bored. Underneath was the obvious belief that no challenge could be found in any of the men in the Asher office. That was more frightening than all the posturing in the world.

“Certainly.” The man lifted a hand to his brow in mocking salute. “I hope to see you again soon, Candy.”

“Not if I see you first, Candy”, she said to him. Gods, she hated that name. Candy, as in a piece of it. It was the equivalent to Sweet Thing out here in the Sphere. She might just shoot the next man to call her that.

He left, but the tension in the office didn’t lift one bit. In fact, the others sort of shuffled around until Maeven and Grimm were next. The locals would feel better when they concluded their business, she assumed. Her transaction went ridiculously smoothly, almost as if some beneficent soul had overseen and rushed the whole thing. She and Grimm made their way cautiously back to the Siren.

“Thanks, Grimm.” He sealed the hatches and turned back toward the now empty hold.

“Next time, I stay on the ship.” With that, he headed for his bunk. He’d been up most of the shift.

“You got it. Next time, I’ll stay on the ship too.”


----------------------------


Mae!" Grimm's voice rang out through the Corsair's empty passenger unit. She stopped working on the food synthesizer and looked up. His braids flopped in his face as he headed toward her with a comm. "You really need to see this."

"If it's not a manifest for my commercial brews, I don't want to see it. Did Luke send any update at all?" Maeven wiped her hands on an already nasty rag from the floor. She'd have to clean up shortly and check the collection point again. They'd docked at their home base nearly a week ago. H.O.I. hovered in orbit over Cranmore and gave her the resources she needed to get the business up and running.

"It's really not,"Grimm said. She took the comm from his hand. It was an intel report from the guild. They'd had a query come through on her. She read on feeling tension prick her temples. The last thing she needed was a pounding headache. Gal-Fed had run a check on her, again.

"It's just another security check. They're beating the bushes again. It'll pass, Grimm." Maeven sounded so very confident. She couldn't imagine Grimm would be fooled. He knew her better than that.

"You know there's some purpose to it", he said irritated. "The Fed does nothing without purpose."

"That's not entirely true. They broke up a riot of approximately ten people on our promenade just last shift."

Still, she knew he was correct. This was the second security run through in as many months. That was when Maeven noticed the query request submission line and date. Security queries couldn't be anonymous, though there were ways to get around it by setting up corporations and identities within corporations. Her heart slammed in her chest as she read the name. Grimm must have noticed something. The man could read body language like no one she'd ever met.

"What's wrong", he asked.

"Jack Hardcourt. If that is his real name. . ."

Grimm whistled. "That must have been some kiss." He should have been teasing, but neither of them were likely to laugh over this. Hardcourt wasn't a ribblez, cute and furry little hitchhikers that multiplied in the hull. The man was dangerous.

"What do you think he wants?" Maeven hated the shake in her fingers as she asked the question and the quake in her tone. Grimm looked at her like she needed a doctor. "He can't be running a security check because he liked a kiss. There's more to it than that."

"He's not on our side of the law, Mae. What could he want?"

"I don't know, Grimm, but we have to find out."

"You sure this isn't best left alone?" Grimm took the comm from her.

"I'm positive. There's no way I'm sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's docked at Cinq Port according to the manifest on his ship."

Grimm's eyebrows shot up. "You're tracking his dock manifest."

"Hell, yes", she said without elaborating. "I'll go check his departure time and you can prepare the ship to go. Oh, and call Luke about those damn brews. The shop is almost empty." As she walked away, she barely heard Grimm's grumbles.

Jack Hardcourt had an agenda. She was sure of it.

******
Cinq Port smelled like canned oxygen because that was exactly what you got; the air was canned. He was here, Maeven knew, and she would find him. His manifest quoted his docking bay number as 100. She rounded the darkened hallway to see a large hulking man lift a locked crate and shove it into a loader. His shirt off, the man's muscles played with the movement. His dark unkempt hair had been pulled back up under a Bolosian kerchief of the desert regions.

Maeven braced herself. "Hardcourt." When he turned, the immediate impression of Jax's face on this outlaw took her breath away.

"Well, Captain Hall, to what do I owe the intrusion?"

"I could ask you the same thing. What do you want to know?"

"About what in particular?" His smirk made her forget his uncanny resemblance to her fiance back on her home planet. Jax had never once worn that cynical, hard expression on his face. She moved closer to him keeping the loader carefully between them.

"I was born on a farm. My parents were simple folk who taught me to work hard from a very young age. They also taught me to recognize a liar. We rode to school on old-fashioned fossil fuels. Anything else you need?" Her voice rose on the last sentence to speak over the release of a neighboring ship. Docking clamps let out a terrible hiss.

"Oh, I need quite a few things." His gaze ran hotly over her body in a border-line insult of male interest. One she was sure he handed out in equal measure to every woman he met. "But specifically, Jax Lemand. You were going to marry him, no?"

"No." Her voice sounded flat even to her own ears. "I was going to come here. My plan had been to marry him and live happy ever after. What possible business is it of yours?" Hostility flashed through her. She wasn't talking to him about Jax. Absolutely, no way.

He nodded. "I wondered. You see, I knew him back before my exile began."

"How?" Her skepticism showed plainly on her face.

"We worked together." She noticed he'd paused. That lie hadn't tripped easily off his tongue.

"Jax worked with a lot of people. He headed the Institute of Science for the Core Federation. But you knew that because you had a look at my file. What do you want?"

"I simply need a second hauler for a run to the Verec. You seem to fit the bill. Your kills are adding up."

"The Verec Per galaxy is a bit out of the way. Surely you have access to haulers."

He smiled leaning on the stack of crates. " I have plenty of access to haulers, but I need a gunner. And a conscience. You don't strike me as the nefarious type, Captain Hall."

Now it was her turn to smile with hard humor. "So the thief doesn't want to be a victim of theft? You want a bodyguard?"

"I want a second hauler. Are you interested?" He quoted the figure making Maeven's heart beat faster. That was some hauling job.

Hiding the temptation she felt to snap up the offer, she said impassively, "I'll have to talk to Grimm. He has a vote. I'd also need to inspect the cargo." There was the off chance that what he wanted was someone to blame if it went to hell.

"You don't trust me?" Maeven merely rolled her eyes and walked back to the Siren's bay. Only an idiot would trust a pirate.