my father there.” Maisie’s expression turned to one of determination. “We have to go there. I want to see it.”
Terror’s stomach felt uneasy. He didn’t believe in fate, and this seemed entirely too coincidental. Yet, he couldn’t deny that something about this seemed right. Every choice they had made had led them to this point. If they turned back now, would they regret it?
He grasped her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Stealing a small transport ship was much easier than Maisie had expected. Terror made the most daunting tasks frighteningly simple. Watching him disable locked doors and override alarms fascinated her. She tried to commit his work to memory, certain she might need those skills someday.
A tiny part of her believed that uncovering the Splinter infiltration would help her earn a pardon. Of course, it was more likely that exposing the contents of the chip was going to cause her death and Terror’s. She wasn’t a naturally morbid person. If anything, she tended toward optimism and a belief that she would always come out safe in the end. But, if the worst happened, she took some comfort in the idea that she and Terror would be together when they died.
Morbid, obviously, but romantic in a bittersweet way.
When they reached the deck where escape shuttles were kept, Terror made a beeline for the nearest one. She grabbed his arm to stop him. “We can’t take an escape pod!”
“Why not?”
“Because if this ship has an emergency, they won’t be able to evacuate all of their passengers!”
His mouth settled into an irritated line. “Really? We’re going to argue about the possibility that the ship is overbooked and they need every single pod for escape?”
“Yes,” she insisted. “I don’t need that on my conscience. Not after what happened back at the skyport!”
His irritation vanished. They hadn’t explicitly discussed the fact that she had lured a bounty hunter to his death and shoved him out of an airlock. It had remained unspoken between them, even now.
Terror cupped the back of her neck and drew her close. He tenderly kissed her forehead. “Fine. We’ll steal something from the cargo bay.”
She trailed him toward the emergency access stairs and followed him down from the evacuation deck to the cargo bay. The first deck held crates of food, beverages, merchandise and other sundries needed for a pleasure cruise of this size. The next deck in the bay had been reserved for maintenance and engine access. The final deck held all of the cargo the pleasure cruise ferried from one destination to the next for profit.
“That one,” she decided, pointing to a slim, fast Cloudcoupe. It wasn’t very big, but it was quick and could slip through vulnerable radar points.
Terror silently agreed and approached the ship. It didn’t take him long to disengage the wing locks or hotwire the engine and navigation to life. He checked his watch as she buckled up in the passenger seat. “We should be able to sneak out around the same time the planet excursion group leaves. Hopefully, the engineers will assume the hatch alarm down here is glitch. There isn’t external security on the cruise. No one should follow us, and I doubt there’s even an Alliance ship within responding distance.”
“But?”
“But we may have problems getting off 4S-8KN,” he cautioned. “If the captain of this cruise reports a theft and does a headcount to find us missing, the Shadow Force will find out about it.” He grimaced. “Most of the men I can trust, but there are enough names of double agents on the chip that it’s a possibility we could run into serious trouble.”
She reached over and grasped his hand. “I understand the risk.”
Terror lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “I love you.”
She smiled sweetly at his slightly clumsy hand signs. “I love you, too.”
Reluctantly, she let go of his hand and gripped the armrests of her seat. Flutters of anxiety filled her belly. What waited for them on the abandoned outpost planet? Would she find evidence her parents had once lived there? Would it be nothing but a disappointment?
Their luck held as Terror expertly exited the ship and navigated quickly away from the pleasure cruise. She had half-expected to find bounty hunters or some of Terror’s colleagues waiting for them. When there was nothing but wide-open space, she relaxed marginally. There was still so much unknown ahead of them.
As Terror piloted their stolen aircraft toward 4S-8KN, she cast quick glances in his direction. While