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  “There will be a reception for me at the museum. Will that give you an entry?”

  She smiled. “That will work rather well, but it will entail a few very specific items. Do you have a fully stocked ship?”

  “The quartermaster is very resourceful. I am sure he can obtain whatever you need.”

  Ceezee nodded and continued her mental tabulations. Two breather canisters, a black bodysuit with cowl, a formal gown that would hide the bodysuit, silk grapples, containment devices and compressed rations.

  While she thought and sipped, he slid a writing tablet in front of her.

  She started to make notes, and as she wrote, his eyes got wide. She looked up, “What?”

  “What language is that?”

  She looked down and realized that for the first time in a decade, she was writing in High Goiin. She blushed and scribbled through her work. “Sorry about that.”

  She worked the words back out in common and slid it over to him. “Here you go, War Leader General.”

  “Call me Deven when we are in private. I will be your only contact while you are here, so it will be best if we are not formal.”

  “Thank you, it is a bit of a mouthful.”

  He chuckled. “We are all named with the same first letter as our father. It gets confusing at family gatherings but is fine most other times.” He tapped one side of his neck and smiled.

  She blinked and smiled. “You meet with your family?”

  “It is infrequent now that we have all taken posts in the Asku armada, but we do try.”

  A deep sigh worked its way up from within her, “That sounds nice.”

  He frowned. “You don’t see your family?”

  “It is not our way.” The parroted phrase was the only reason she could come up with.

  Deven scowled. “It doesn’t seem right.”

  She snorted. “Tell me about it. Don’t get me wrong, Uncle Victoro is a good man and he has taken good care of me.”

  “You were raised by your uncle?”

  “I was. It is tradition in our clan.” She was spilling far more than she meant to, and with some effort, she turned her attention back to the theft. “Now, how are you going to enter the facility?”

  He straightened from the attentive posture he had been in. “I will be flying down by shuttle, but for obvious reasons, you will have to find another means to the surface.”

  She sighed and leaned back in her chair, her robes fluffing and then settling around her. “You really don’t want to make it easy for me, do you?”

  “Ah, dearest Ceezee, there is nothing easy about this.”

  There was heat in his dark eyes, and she realized that he was not simply referring to the theft. With a slight fluster she returned her attention to the task at hand but part of her mind was spinning with possibilities that had no business in her thoughts.

  Chapter Four

  The quartermaster was even more efficient than Deven had led her to believe.

  Smiling, she turned from side to side and admired her reflection in the mirror in Deven’s lav. Her room was too small for all of the items she had needed, and now, they were neatly tucked inside the suit that was invisible beneath the elegant gown she was wearing.

  Ceezee sighed and pinned her hair up in an elaborate twist, grinning at the tower that was taking shape with every coil locked into position. She had no idea where the quartermaster had found the cosmetics, but when she finished, her eyes had a deep smoulder to them, her lips were red and glossy and there was a light blush to her pale cheeks.

  Her cousins used to laugh and say she looked like a character out of the children’s tales they had listened to. All of her colouration was dramatic and there was nothing to be done about it. It could have been worse. She could have had crimson hair.

  When she was sure that the heavily boned gown was covering all of the packs, canisters and pouches that she had requisitioned, Ceezee walked out into the main room of the war leader general’s quarters.

  “Holy stars.” Ceezee stood in shock at the impressive physique outlined by embroidered and metal-embossed leather.

  He was huge, gorgeous and perfectly proportioned in every way. For the event, he had bound his hair behind his neck in a neat tail that slid and caressed his shoulders with every movement of his head.

  He turned when she spoke, and his eyes glowed with dark heat as he took in the slate and silver gown coupled with her makeover.

  He walked up to her and bowed low. “You look wonderful, Miss Hewara. It is a pity that you are not my escort for the party.”

  She shivered and smiled. “It is too bad. If you will excuse me, I will return to my room. Have a lovely party.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, inhaling deeply. “We will speak after this is over.”

  “Oh, you are going to have plenty to say, I am sure.” She smiled and stroked his arms wistfully. “You will be late.”

  He nodded and separated from her.

  Ceezee left his quarters and made a beeline for the shuttle bays, using one of the devices hidden in her corset to jam the monitors.

  She ran to one of the escape pods and ejected it, then ejected two more before climbing into one and launching herself. The controls were delicate, but she managed to move the pod to the exterior of the warship within the gravitational field.

  Ceezee slipped one of the gas canisters up and used it to breathe, leaving the pod appearing to be unoccupied under the assumption that the vehicle would need atmosphere to contain an occupant.

  The war leader general’s shuttle emerged three minutes after her exit, so Ceezee moved the pod close to it and cloaked it in her darkness.

  Her one and only talent was a handy thing, the ability to call the darkness in an area and use it for cover was not particularly useful unless one was trying to hide. She hid a lot.

  The magnetic seal between her pod and his shuttle was confirmed an instant before his pilot put on the speed.

  Sighing in relief via the mask and canister, she settled in for the short trip to the planet below.

  In her mind, she went over her entrance strategy to the event, but her thoughts kept wandering to how perfectly Deven’s uniform fit him. She had not yet taken a lover, but he was looking like a good candidate.

  Her mind idly kept an eye on the altimeter as they approached the surface while her imagination tried to fill in what Deven would look like without his clothing on.

  Women of the Hewara clan were supposed to wait until marriage but most were wed long before they were lodged in their second decade. She was a top earner for the family, and it was becoming clearer with every year that Uncle Victoro was keeping her as an operative for his own cash supply and the clan’s reputation.

  She mused over the repercussions of throwing herself at Deven while uncoupling the pod for a weightless glide onto the museum itself. The pod parked in a rooftop garden pool, she quickly exited leaping from the ship to the pathway breathing in the heady air of another new planet.

  Her boots clicked on the tiles of the stone walks through the garden and she kept herself against the wall cloaked in darkness, as the guards thundered past. She slipped through the door that was swinging shut, and just like that she was inside the war museum of the Hallothian Empire.

  * * * *

  Deven looked around at the dignitaries, their companions, wives and escorts and wished that Ceezee were at his side.

  He had learned quite a bit about her in the time that she had been on his ship. Her parents had not simply handed her off to her uncle. She had been sold. Her immigration papers on Weskani showed her being an imported item at age two. She had been classified as livestock.

  Tracking her parents had been difficult but not impossible. He had observed that they had sold seven other children, and purchased five. Apparently, the financial exchange was common amongst the Hewara.

  Her parents lived on one of the Recion colonies. They were doing well financially and had no contact with thei
r sold children.

  He smiled as he imagined the Radiance’s reaction to someone offering money for one of her children. Deven doubted that those making the offer would survive past the first sentence.

  “You seem in a good mood, War Leader.” The Hallothian ambassador was next to him, her lush thigh pressed to his.

  He stepped away deliberately. “Do I?”

  The woman blushed, “Yes, well, how are you enjoying the exhibition of our triumphs?”

  He glanced around him at the precious objects ripped from dozens of worlds. “It is an impressive collection.”

  “It has taken nine generations to assemble. Have you seen the crystals of Wendial?”

  He shook his head. “No. They are at the far end of the exhibit?”

  “They are. We put them in lockup this afternoon, just in case one of the Wendial tried to stage a protest.”

  A frisson of unease went through him. “A very sensible precaution.”

  Ambassador Ren smiled and licked her lips. “Come this way.” She linked her arm through his and pressed herself to him as they walked through the crowd.

  Deven hoped that Ceezee had an alternate idea because she was not going to get in easily.

  Chapter Five

  She knew it would not be easy but after she had hacked into the system and found that they had enacted the bio lock early, she pulled up the other information she would need.

  Ambassador Ren was now her target. The moron had put the lock onto her own DNA, and she was just slutty enough to try to show every handsome male at the gala.

  Ceezee moved along the pathways, smiling and flirting with the other guests, her glass of alcohol was sipped every few seconds but nothing passed her lips.

  She was simply another one of the guests, despite the fact that she was hiding the tremendous heat that her suit was causing her. One of the more grabby guests had triggered her suit’s thermal activation and there was no way for her to switch it off in the centre of the exhibits without causing notice.

  Grace, poise, head high. She chanted those words to herself over and over as she meandered her way to the crystals of Wendial. The moment she was inside the key exhibit, Ceezee reached behind her with her left hand and pressed the spot at the base of her spine that turned off the thermal unit.

  She gasped in relief when the heat ceased to toast her. The bodysuit she was wearing was a small-sized survival suit. The heat function was designed for icy worlds.

  Ceezee shook her head before taking a long look at the crystals suspended in the bio-locked gel. They were round, facetted and looked to weigh about two pounds each.

  Footsteps behind her got her attention. Someone was coming, and based on the gossip of everyone she had met so far, Ambassador Ren was a notorious slut and taking some of the men on tours of this acquisition gave her the illusion of privacy. Few, if any of the partygoers, took the crystals as a triumph. Even the Hallothian nobles were not impressed by the act of treachery that had brought the crystals to them.

  Ceezee pulled her darkness around her and faded into the shadows. Silently she prepared for the next part of her plan, one that Deven would not wish to be part of.

  She pulled her hood up over her tower of hair, draping fabric over her nose and mouth.

  When the trampy ambassador sashayed into the exhibit with Deven on her arm, Ceezee looked longingly at the war leader general before she dropped a tiny tablet into her goblet. The bubbling gas cruised through the air at shoulder height, rising rapidly.

  The ambassador dropped to the ground in two seconds, but it took Deven twelve seconds before he collapsed.

  Wincing, she put the goblet on the ground and moved to get the blood sample from the ambassador. A quick prick of her hand, a slight smear on the DNA plate and the suspension turned into liquid.

  Ceezee removed the crystals and tucked them up under her skirt. Just inside the entryway, she held her breath, removed her mask and tucked the suit out of sight.

  With a slow and graceful walk, Ceezee made her way out of the exhibit, past the guards and into the main hall.

  Her heart pounded in her chest, because the next phase of her plan was the most dangerous.

  Her slow, careless walk took her out of the museum and into the yard. She made a show of stretching and breathing deeply while rubbing her corset.

  Her pace remained leisurely. She passed a number of couples necking in the courtyard and two that had proceeded on to the next step. Apparently coming out for air was not as unusual as she thought.

  The pilot of Deven’s shuttle was at relaxed attention in front of the hatch. She walked up to him and smiled, “It has been ages since I have seen such a charming assembly of Asku.”

  “This is a private shuttle, miss. You will have to stand back.”

  She sighed and while his gaze flitted to her heaving cleavage, he did not waver. With a quick flick of her wrists, she darted him. The difficult part of this step came when she had to haul his unconscious body to a safe distance from his shuttle.

  The Hallothian guards were stirring like ants from a hill, so she set the Asku carefully in an alcove and then ran for his shuttle. Four days was not normally enough time to hack a high-military system, but normally, she was not visiting the commander’s quarters every day.

  She opened the hatch, slipped inside and latched it. The console was familiar, and the ship responded easily to her hand.

  With the ground-to-air guns taking aim at her, she pulled the Asku shuttle from the tarmac and headed for the skies.

  She engaged the atmospheric shields just in time. The ship rocked to one side, but she kept it steady and pulled out of the Hallothian atmosphere.

  Her hands shook as she cloaked the ship in her darkness. It was hard to hide something this large, especially when it was moving.

  With the shuttle hidden and no one able to track it, she set a course for Wendial. The Asku could not be involved in the replacement of the crystals, so she was not going to let Deven put himself in danger. He hired her to get the crystals without bringing the Asku into it, turning him into a victim of the theft was the only way she knew how to deflect suspicion.

  She sighed at what may have been. Her actions put her beyond any consideration for tender feelings. Her little fantasies would have to take a back seat to carrying out her job.

  As the ship gained speed, she locked the controls and moved to take off the elegant gown. The bodice came off first, the corset laces releasing, and her sleeves went with the boned garment.

  “That is so much better.” She rubbed at the middle of her spine and stretched. She released her hair until the braid slithered heavily down her back. She unfastened the skirt and watched it puddle with a wistful glance.

  Ceezee loved wearing big skirts. It was the bane of her job that they were completely impractical. She lifted the fabric and caressed it as she folded and tucked it away in one of the bags strapped to her thighs. Under the gown, she had been a veritable storage centre.

  She checked her supply of gas tablets, her knives, spikes, feathers of a Ciina bird, the crystals and her ration packs. With everything accounted for, she pulled the hood over her head and attached the fabric that covered her face. She missed her robes, but she would make do with the bodysuit she had been given.

  Ceezee had to take the crystals to their rightful home and nothing was going to get in her way.

  * * * *

  Deven rubbed at his forehead. “Do you have a course for her?”

  The crewman frowned. “It is intermittent, but she appears to be heading for Wendial. I don’t know why I can’t lock the signal, but extrapolation is giving us Wendial as a heading.”

  War Leader General Deven had a headache that was going to last for days as well as the sensation of being betrayed. He couldn’t decide which feeling he despised more.

  “Keep your distance but keep alert for that signal. I don’t know how she is hiding that ship, but it does make me wonder what else was hiding under that gown.”
/>   The crewman grinned, “You are not the only one, War Leader.”

  His instincts kicked in, “What?”

  Sensing that he was on dangerous ground, the crewman said, “Your pilot was struck with a dart of some kind. There is nowhere on that gown for her to hide that sort of weapon.”

  Deven put his hand on the other man’s shoulder and squeezed. “No one is to speculate what she has on under that gown but me. Is that clear?”

  The crewman was nervous. “Yes, War Leader. Of course.”

  “Keep me informed of any changes in direction.” Deven held his temper and returned to his quarters. His emotions were rioting between fury and worry, and he was comfortable with neither.

  Ceezee was playing a dangerous game. He desperately hoped that she didn’t get caught.

  Chapter Six

  She scanned the news reports of Wendial, managing to piece together the location that she was looking for.

  Ceezee knew that she couldn’t simply walk into the building and plug in the crystals. Someone would notice her and certainly report her to the authorities. That was notoriety that she did not seek. The Hewara were thieves, not heroes. The High Goiin were also hunted, so being caught bringing power back to a planet was not high on her list of things to do today.

  Her head pounded and her brain ached from the effort of holding the shielding in place. Ceezee’s best bet was to drop in under cover of darkness and deliver the crystals before anyone was the wiser.

  She only hoped that she could hold out that long. Covering a shuttle in darkness was difficult at the best of times. Doing it for hours to avoid detection was quite a strain.

  The area was surrounded with Hallothian ships.

  Ceezee turned off the shuttle’s systems and glided between two of the huge star cruisers. The atmosphere waited, beckoning her cloaked shuttle, offering safety and a conclusion to her adventure.

  She delayed restarting the engines until it was obvious that it would be fatal not to. Wrapped in shadows and hurtling to the ground, her panicked hands on the controls, Ceezee had to admit that it was one helluva way to spend a day.