Tristan brought the shuttle to a stop at the coordinate his employer had sent after he’d contacted him with news he had the boy. He did a visual check of their area, nothing. Not even a rock to hide behind. Not the kind of location Tristan would have picked. There was nothing to use as cover if things went wrong. It did mean nothing could sneak up on him, but that wasn’t going to be comforting if a fleet showed up. “Nothing,” Alex said. “No other ship in range.” Tristan brought up the scans, ready to slap the human for giving away their position, but only the passive scanners were in use. He…was impressed. “You’d think he’d be waiting for us,” Alex said. “He knew where Emil was, he set the rendezvous. For the kind of money he’s paying, I’d have expected him to be close by.” Tristan shut down as many of the systems as he could to minimize their detectable profile. “Take the boy out of cryo and see to it he doesn’t get in my way.” That system used the most power after propulsion. Tristan double checked the passive scans, in case Alex had missed something once the human was off dealing with the boy. He had a valid point. Where was his employer? * * * * * Tristan spent a few hours doing maintenance on the shuttle’s controls, then accessed the net for documents on the latest modifications done by Herberru to the Goliath class warships. While he read he kept an ear out for Alex’s movements. He’d taken the boy out of cryo as instructed, and hadn’t had to do much else. The boy had taken a datapad from his suitcase and sat on the cabin’s bed to read. He had only moved from there when Alex brought him food. Food wouldn’t be an issue, he’d stock the shuttle with a year’s worth, even with the three of them, they’d last months before it became a concern. Alex sat back at the communication board, asked for permission to contact the network and when Tristan gave it put that earpiece in his ear. Then he was looking through systems. Tristan tried to follow what he did, but the code changed too quickly for him to keep up with it. As the hours stretched, Tristan went over the scanners, making sure they were in good working order. That took a few more hours. Still no employer. After ten hours, sleep became a concern. Neither he nor Alex had slept since before setting out to get the boy. Cryo wasn’t restful. He took out two bedrolls and set them up in the cargo hold. He had little there, a few crates for the food, some weapons and armor, as well as tools. He locked the boy in the room before lying down. Alex rummaged around for a blanket then finally lied down too. * * * * * On the third day of waiting, Tristan had enough of Alex’s pacing. Why couldn’t he be like the boy? That one was perfectly happy with reading material and food. Alex had run out of things to do on their second day of waiting and had begun walking around the shuttle, reappearing in the cockpit every eight to twelve minutes to sit at the communication board, spend a few minutes looking things over and then going back to walking. Tristan grabbed him the next time he came in the cockpit and dragged him to the hold, where he fought him. Alex had improved over the months, he now made sure to protect his neck and in general kept Tristan from grabbing hold of him. That didn’t mean he didn’t end up with multiple bruises and cuts while they fought. He was nowhere near good enough to win any of those fights. After four hours Alex could barely stand, so Tristan ended the training session. Watching the human apply sealant on his cuts and inject himself with an immune booster reminded Tristan he didn’t have anything human strength on the shuttle. If he was going to keep Alex around and make use of him on missions, he’d have to add that to his supply. And get him neck armor. The boy looked up from his pad when Tristan glanced in the room in passing, but didn’t comment on his disheveled state. Tristan picked up his pad and went back to his own reading. * * * * * The next five days were much the same; Tristan did maintenance on something to keep his hands busy, read, sparred with Alex. The boy stayed in the room and read. Alex stopped pacing, and spent most of his time seated in the only other place in the cockpit, looking at the sensor and talking with some of the systems. “Something’s coming,” Alex said. Finally, Tristan thought. He didn’t mind waiting, but this was ridiculous. “Man, that ship’s fast.” The words made Tristan bring up the sensor readout. “That is a lot of power,” Alex said. He was right. He tried for a visual on the incoming ship, but it was still too far. What was clear was that he knew they were here, he was heading directly for their position. Tristan brought the active sensors online and scanned the ship. Even before he had read half the results he was waking up the shuttle and got them moving as fast as it could. “What’s going on?” Alex asked. Tristan scanned their surroundings. Nothing in range. The closest planet was where they’d come from, a month of Objective travel time, and they wouldn’t make it. That ship was faster than his. “Who is that?” “Be quiet,” Tristan growled. A red point appeared on his screen heading toward them faster than the ship; a missile. Why had his employer picked such an empty place for their meeting? He had nothing to put between him and the missile. He launched a heat flare and did a tight turn that stressed the gravity system. The missile followed the shuttle, ignoring the flare. Not heat tracking then. Electronic? But which signature was it watching? “What can I do to help?” Tristan wanted to yell at him to get out of his cockpit, he had enough to keep him busy with keeping the missile from catching them and working out how he could get it to lose that lock. What he really needed was another set of hands to— “Make a full scan of the missile and send the result to my screen.” Alex finally stopped hovering and a moment later details about the missile appeared. The computer had already found a match. It was a Barilium Chaser. It was a disabling missile; the impact would cause minimal physical damage but it would disrupt every system, leaving him vulnerable to their pursuer. It had full ship electronic profile lock, which was almost impossible to lose because it was smart enough to adjust to small alterations as different functions came and went. What it couldn’t deal with, was a full loss of a signature, but that meant shutting everything down and leaving himself vulnerable to the other ship. One of the screens flashed red and Tristan banked hard. The ship’s hull registered the heat of lasers, but no damage. “Do you want me to—” “Be quiet!” Tristan banked again, trying to get the missile in the way of the lasers, but it was too smart for that. “You do know you’re wasting your time,” a calm voice came over the communication system. “You can’t outrun me or my missile so why don’t you power down and hand over the kid.” Tristan shut down the communication system. He’d have a talk with Alex after this about leaving it active. At least it had let him confirm this wasn’t someone he’d dealt with before, and what he was after. Even as fast as his ship was, the boy’s disappearance had to have been realized shortly after they left the system. Now he had to get rid of that missile. He did a wide loop, letting it get closer, and ended pointing at the other ship. He flew toward it firing his own laser and doing rapid zigzags to keep the other from getting a lock. He didn’t score any hits, but that wasn’t the point. Unlike his opponent, Tristan didn’t need him alive so the other ship had to focus on evasion instead of attack. Their ships crossed path close enough they could have bumped each other. Tristan shut everything down, even life support. They became a piece of space junk, blind, deaf, moving on a ballistic trajectory to wherever infinity led before them. Tristan counted the seconds. If he waited too long, he wouldn’t get the chance to power the ship back up, but too soon and his gambit wouldn’t work. Fifteen seconds. “Did something hit us?” Twenty, twenty-five. The Barilium Chaser had a twenty-second reset time, and it took between ten to twenty-second to reestablish the lock. Thirty. His opponent might or might not know that. So he might not think to enter the override command in time, regardless, he’d be busy. Thirty-five. Tristan powered up the shuttle and banked the moment it was responsive. A moment later his screens came back. Nothing red, no locks on him anymore. He quickly found the other ship, now trying to outrun the missile. Of course, left alone, the other pilot would be able to get enough distance to enter the override. Too bad for him he wasn’t alone. Tristan fired at the other ship and grazed it. The communication light flashed, but Tristan ignored it, firing again. The ship dodged his lasers and then went completely silent. Tristan shook his head. Stealing his own trick wouldn’t work. He locked on the missile while it was resetting and destroyed it. Then he got a visual lock on the other ship and blew it up. He gave himself a second of satisfaction as the flames vanished, then set a course away from here. “Get the boy ready for cryo,” he said, typing a quick message to let his employer know the location was compromised. “Who was that? What was this about?” “A merc, after the boy.” What was he still doing here? “You began evasive maneuvers before he did anything. How did you know it wasn’t our boss?” Tristan spun and glared at the human. “I told you to get the boy ready.” “I just want to understand, it isn’t like it’s going to make a difference, we’re not going to be flying any faster once we’re in cryo.” Tristan’s hands closed into fists, and Alex glanced at them, but he didn’t back away. “If I understand what you saw that I didn’t, I’ll be able to react better next time.” The argument had some validity. If the human was going to be around, he didn’t want him to get in the way. Understanding could help him anticipate what Tristan needed. He forced his hands open and turned. He brought the scan of the other ship. “This is a Valie Striker. It’s fast, can have a variety of armament and has reasonable armor. Even if you don’t know that, the scan clearly shows it’s small. There’s the cockpit and no more than ten cubic feet of cargo space. You can also see that it’s been in fights before. The hull has been repaired multiple times.” He turned and watched Alex. “The guy who hired us,” the human said, “he’s got money, he dumped a lot of expensive jewels at your feet like it didn’t matter to him. And his ship was pristine. It was also kind of large. So just looking at that, you know it wasn’t him.” “He said he only uses the best. The Striker is okay, but it isn’t the best.” “And if it wasn’t our boss, whoever showed up had to have less than good intentions toward us. How did he know to come here?” “Our employer’s communications might not have been as secured as he thought. Maybe he was hiding nearby and was discovered.” Tristan gave Alex five seconds to ask something else. “Now, go get the boy ready for Cryo.” He faced the controls again. The communication system informed him his message couldn’t be delivered. “It’s over?” The boy’s voice came from the room. He didn’t sound afraid. “Yes,” Alex said, “it is.” “Were they bad men?” “Yes. But you don’t have to worry anymore. You’re safe now.” “They’re going to try again. They’re going to want to hurt me so it’ll hurt my father.” Tristan’s ear straightened. The boy knew that someone might use him to get to his father? “Why do you say that?” “My father explained it in his messages to me. That’s why I was in the academy, to keep me safe.” “Don’t worry. No one is going to hurt you, I’ll make sure of that. Now you need to go in cryo again.” Tristan turned and waited. The sounds of Alex getting the boy in the cryo bed came, then everything was silent. Alex came out of the room and saw him. “Emil’s under.” “You lied to the boy,” Tristan stated. “I didn’t.” “You told him no one is going to hurt him.” Alex opened his mouth, then closed it. He sighed. “He’s just a kid.” “The universe doesn’t care. You know the person who wants him will hurt him. You’re not helping the boy by lying about that.” “Do you really want to have to deal with a freaked out kid? And yeah. Maybe once we deliver him I can’t protect him anymore, but while he’s here I can make sure he’s safe.” Tristan stood and went to Alex. He looked down at him and bared his teeth. “Can you?”