Tristan didn’t need to act like he was in pain as he sat down in the chair. That didn’t keep him from laughing, it had been a good fight. He indicated the cabinet on the wall and the boy took the medical pack out of it. “Always make sure you have something to look after your injuries, buddy. You never know when you’ll get hurt.” The boy nodded and Tristan took out two containers from the pack. “Start with good immune boosters, and painkillers. You don’t want to get an infection, and pain can keep you from thinking clearly.” “Is that what’s making you laugh?” Tristan smiled. “No, I’m just happy to be alive.” He took two of each and put the containers back. “When you get them, make sure they’re for your species. They’re all different in one way or another. Mine might kill you.” He frowned. “Well, if you’re buying them it shouldn’t be a problem, everyone sells human strength, there’s so many of you in the universe. It’s if you need to borrow some that can be the problem.” He closed his mouth as the pain diminished. He was rambling. “The next step is to seal any cuts or punctures.” He pulled out the spray. “Most cuts can be sprayed closed, but if it’s too large, or bleeds too much, you’ll need to bracket it shut.” He pulled out the stapler, and Emil made a face. “Yeah, it isn’t pleasant, but it can keep you alive, and in the end, that’s the important thing.” He sprayed the multiple cuts and scrapes he had, and then had the boy do those he couldn’t easily reach. The disinfectant mixed in stung, but the sensation didn’t last. He took out another container. “Finally, if you’re someplace where no one can find you, you want to take a couple of these, they accelerate your body’s ability to heal. Unfortunately that takes a lot out of you so you need to be sure you’re in a safe place, with food and water.” The boy nodded. Tristan put it away without taking any. “We have work to do so it’s going to have to wait.” Emil looked at the pack. “What else is in it?” Tristan hefted it. “A couple of bone knitters, in case I break a limb, a knife, to cut clothing that’s in the way.” “You have claws.” Tristan smiled. “I do, but they don’t work well against thicker things, like hide or armor. You want a vibro-knife for that.” He put the pack away without mentioning the Azeru or Kentric in it. The boy didn’t need to know about the guns he kept. “How about we go get that beast and prepare it?” “Shouldn’t you rest?” Tristan smiled. “I’ll be fine.” He ruffled the boy’s hair, “Come on, Buddy, this is going to be fun.” He went down to the cargo hold and pulled a small hover sled out of storage. * * * * * The sun was getting low over the trees. Tristan and Emil were cutting strips of meat from the skinned beast still resting on the sled, and draping them over branches Tristan had arranged around the fire so they could dry. They were talking and sometime laughing. Emil had opened up when Tristan had asked about his father. He’d revealed that what he’d told him before was a lie, to protect his father, who worked for the government, the Space Government. Tristan asked a few more questions, simple ones, more designed to keep the boy talking than get answers, but it became evident that he knew little of his father’s life. The lie had been more of a complete person than the real one to Emil. The boy was very pragmatic about it, his father had to be careful, because of the bad men. Tristan nodded and steered the conversation away from that subject since there was no information to be gained. It felt wrong to him that the boy didn’t know anything more about his father, not only because it meant less information, but because a child should know the person responsible for his existence. As much as he might not like his own father, the man had been known to him, he hadn’t lied about what he was doing and why. The increase in rustling of the leave made Tristan pick up the Azeru he’d brought out. A moment later the underside of a hover became visible and he stood. He sent the boy further back and waited. As the hover came down he saw the sides, claiming it was a waste disposal vehicle. He’d seen it before, when Alex was testing the displays, but he didn’t relax. This didn’t mean Alex was the one piloting it. He could have been captured, this could be some bounty hunter here to— The ramp came down and Alex hurried out. Tristan smiled at him. “Hey, we went hunting. We’re going to eat well.” The human barely glanced in his direction, heading for his shuttle with an expression bordering on terrified. “Buddy, you stay here and keep cutting strips, I need to go see what’s wrong with Alex.” The boy nodded. When he entered the shuttle, half a dozen cabinets were opened, some of their content spilled on the floor. The human opened another one, rummaged through it, cursed, and moved on to the next one. He noticed Tristan. “I need a scanner.” “Why?” “I don’t have time to answer questions, I need to find it and take it out.” A box containing a spare relay fell to the floor with the sound of something breaking in it. Tristan looked back. The boy was far enough he shouldn’t hear anything. He grabbed Alex’s arm and slammed him against the other wall. He glared at the human. “Talk.” He could see the human workout what he’d say, and for a moment Tristan expected to hear a lie. “I’ve been tagged.” Too few words, no needless explanation, and the desperation in his voice, all true. “How?” “I don’t know. It has to have been on the station, that fight. She knew we were there. And she showed up here.” “Someone is coming here? You led them here?” “No!” Alex winced at the look Tristan gave him and lowered his voice. “She’s busy dealing with the Law, but I don’t know how long that’s going to be. I need to take it out and destroy it before she can get a fix on where we are.” If someone knew where they were, they had to leave. “Sit, and don’t move from there.” Alex opened his mouth then closed it. Tristan formulated what he was going to tell the boy as he walked to the fire. “Buddy.” He made his tone serious. “We need to get going. Alex found out where your father is.” He had to find a new place for the meeting, it couldn’t be on this planet, not with an unknown factor here. Emil’s face brightened. “Really?” then it darkened slightly. “Alex looked afraid.” “You’re father’s in trouble, that’s why we have to hurry. Come on, you need to go under cryo.” “What about this?” he indicated the drying strips. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to leave them for the animals. Me and Alex will pack the rest of our things. You need to wash up.” The boy looked at his bloody hands and nodded. When they were clean, they went back to the shuttle. Alex was squirming in his chair, but he didn’t say anything when he saw them. Emil climbed on the bed and stretched. “Next time you get out of this, you’ll be seeing your father, I promise.” The boy smiled, and Tristan switched the cryo unit on. He left the room, went to a cabinet, took the portable medical scanner out and shoved it at Alex. “Now, who tagged you, and why.” Alex turned the scanner on and began running it over his body. “I don’t know her name, she worked at Luminex, you killed her husband.” “I killed a lot of people there.” Alex concentrated for a moment. “Her husband was the head of security. Anyway, she went nuts, had me tortured trying to get me to admit I was your accomplice and to tell her where you were hiding.” Alex cursed when he’d scanned his entire body. “Damn it, it’s got to be there, it’s the only way she could have found me here.” Tristan considered him. A tag was the merc slang for a tracker, there were a lot of models, each with different uses. If he’d gotten this at the station, that meant they’d walked through multiple scanners without triggering them. Something not only small, but operating on a bandwidth not scanned for. “How did you escape her?” he took out another scanner as well as tools. He’d have to increase its sensitivity. “She was forced to release me by the new president. She was punished, but she was still obsessed. She kept watching me. I remember her confronting me at the port. I must have knocked her out somehow.” “You left her alive?” Tristan was more amused than angry at that. He remembered who Alex had been then. “Hey, I was a corporate coercionist back then, not some merc, okay? I couldn’t have killed her even if I’d wanted to.” “And did you kill her now?” There was only so much he could push the sensitivity on this model, it was designed for circuitry scans, not nano-sized devices. If it didn’t find it, he’d have to see about frying the tag while it was still in the human. “I didn’t have the chance.” Tristan looked up form his work, surprised. “You would have killed her?” Alex’s hesitation told him all he needed to know. He would have to work on that, if he was going to keep him around. “I wasn’t armed, I didn’t expect them, and by then the Law had been notified. I was running against the clock. I decided the job was more important than getting rid of her.” Tristan turned the scanner on and ran it over Alex. Not everywhere, but where the human had gotten hurt while on the station. It would have been then. Probably put in while he was distracted. An open wound made it easy to insert something if the person knew what they were doing. The scanner picked up something in his right arm, just below the elbow. He put the scanner aside and held the arm. He massaged where it should be, but he couldn’t feel anything. It was deep in the muscle then. He tightened his hold and before Alex could do or say anything he cut an ‘x’ with a claw as deep as he could. He ignored the human’s screams and his attempt to pull his arm away. He dug in the wound with two fingers, The scanner had shown enough circuitry for him to be able to feel it and grab it. He forced it open and cut again. When he reached in this time he felt it, something metallic. It took him three tries, but he had it out. “Did you have to fucking do it this way?” Alex was panting. Tristan looked at the tag, it was pointed, the other end had been scored ahead of time, to ensure it broke off. It was too bad he couldn’t tell how to deactivate it. It would be interesting to study it. He threw it in the disposal unit and forced it to run multiple cycles to ensure there was nothing left of it. When he turned to Alex, the human was covered in sweat, blood dripping freely down his arm. “I don’t like that you left her alive. It means she is going to be a problem in the future. But at least you got the equipment back, that’s the important thing.” “Yeah, about that.” Tristan was in his face. “What?” Alex looked away. “I couldn’t get the computers.” He screamed as Tristan shoved his thumb in the open wound. “Something went wrong! The loaders didn’t work. I didn’t have the time to do it manually. I got the cameras!” “I need those computers for the job,” Tristan growled and pressed harder. “No! You don’t!” He took his thumb out and watched the humans pant. Alex indicated the boards. “Your computer’s pretty advanced. They can do the job. If you give me full access to it, I can get it to process all the signals and transmit them. I have the broadcast codes. That’s the important thing.” Tristan watched the human’s eyes. He wasn’t certain he could do it. This was a desperate plea for his life, a gambit. Maybe he needed to force him to go back for it. They could move to a different location, let things cool down and then do this the way it should have been done from the start, his way. An alarm sounded in the cockpit. Not proximity, this was from the net. One of his watch programs had been triggered. He pulled up the information and cursed. Alex’s face had been added to the bounty hunter’s boards, with a notification he was Tristan’s partner. He cursed the universe again. There was no way they could get the computers now. He glared at the human, he had better hope he was as good as he thought, because now, his life really depended on him doing what he said he could.