Declassified

Qui

“It’s a pretty notion,” Bridy said, “but that’s only ’cause it’s far away. If we cashed in and settled down, you’d be bored out of your mind inside a week.”

The accusation stung. “The old me.” He clasped her hand. “But I’ve changed—you’ve seen it. I let a lot of my life slip away while I wasn’t looking, and I ain’t gettin’ any younger, that’s for damned sure. I don’t know how much time I got left, but whatever I got coming, I want to spend it with you.”

Bridy sat up and tucked her knees to her chest. “I have to give you credit—you never fail to surprise me.” She hugged her knees with one arm and used her free hand to finger-comb her tousled hair from her eyes. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as a domestic breed. You’ve always struck me as a rover.”

“No. Just a guy ru

“You make it sound so easy.” She pushed aside the sheet and got up to pace beside the bed. “I spent half my life working to get intoStarfleet and the other half working forStarfleet. How am I supposed to turn my back on that?”

“Think about what you just said. You’ve given them your whole life so far—don’t you think maybe that’s enough? Shouldn’t some of your life be yours?”

She shook her head. “I took an oath.”

“For life? Are you saying you’ll never hang up the uniform?”

“Never’s a long time.” She threw a nervous glance his way. “What are yousaying? That if I stay in Starfleet, you’ll leave without me?”

He looked away to hide his frustration at having his bluff called. “No. If you say we stay, then we stay.” He put on a crooked smile. “I’d rather be in hell with you than in heaven by myself.”

Bridy circled the bed and sat down beside him. “Seriously? In hell? Is our life out here that bad? I know it gets hairy now and then, but we’ve had some good times, haven’t we?”

“Maybe a few,” he admitted with reluctance. “But I’ve had my share of rotten luck, and I know the longer we keep goin’, the better the odds one or both of us’ll wind up dead.”

“So, what’s the alternative? How would this play out, if you had your way?”

“In a perfect world? You’d resign from Starfleet by subspace radio, and then we’d get the hell out of the Taurus Reach as fast as this ship’ll go. Find a place to settle down, sell the ship, and make a few munchkins. Just be regular folks.”

She looked amused, and that made him nervous. Planting a hand on her hip, she said, “Hypothetically speaking, what if I wanted to finish this mission before we go and start pricing beach houses? Would that seem like a reasonable request?”

Qui

“And I’d need to be in charge of naming any munchkins.”

“Now hang on just a—”

“Take it or leave it.”

“ Hrmph. Okay. Sold.”

Bridy planted a quick kiss on Qui

His knees creaked, his back ached, and his stomach gurgled loudly as he stood. Plodding out of their cabin, he mumbled, “I’ll see what I can do.”

5

Descending the Dulcinea’s ramp, Bridy tugged at the neck of the wheat-colored garment Qui

Qui

A hot, foul wind greeted them as they disembarked. She followed him away from the Dulcineaand across the dingy, open-air starport hangar. True to his word, he had shaved nearly an hour off their travel time to Seudath, and he had overloaded only one plasma relay to do it. Compared to the wear and tear he had routinely inflicted on his previous ship, the Rocinante,the sacrifice of a single plasma relay seemed like nothing. With muted amusement, she wondered whether Qui

“Nice place.” She eyed their run-down environs, which in searing midday sunlight resembled a deep and heavily rusted iron pit, and waved away a cloud of noxious smoke wafting over them. “Really first-rate.”

“You get what you pay for.” Qui

She scowled at him. “They had to work with what you gave them.”

They paused at the entrance while Qui

They moved in careful steps through a dense crowd of aliens, most of them humanoids, all of them being observed by armed Gorn soldiers moving in pairs or squads of four. Right away, Bridy noticed strangers glaring in her and Qui

“Not just humans—anybody from the Federation. We’re about as welcome here as a shit stain on a wedding dress.”

“Thanks for the visual.”

“Pull your hood up. You’ll draw less attention.”

As they rounded a corner into an intersection, they could see the city of Tzoryp sprawled around them. Built on and between six low hills, it was uneven and incomplete. Its main starport had been erected atop its broadest and highest elevation, affording Qui

Qui

“Well, I ain’t, and I think it looks like an overbaked turd.” He nodded toward a nondescript, unmarked doorway in a building across the street. “Over there.” Then he gently nudged Bridy into step beside him as he hurried toward it.

Dodging oncoming vehicles, Bridy asked, “Where are we going?”

“Fact-finding mission.” They scrambled off the street, slipped through the open doorway, and descended a short staircase to a dim basement cantina thumping with aggressive music. The air inside the bar was cool and thick with several fragrances of smoke, some that Bridy found pleasant and a few that made her want to retch. Qui

Bridy gave the joint a quick looking-over and noted two possible alternative exits. She also counted thirty-nine patrons and four employees and concluded that every single one of them was likely to be armed. “This doesn’t bode well.”