Fifty hours. Fredrak had estimated fifty hours. They were down to forty-nine by the time they reached Fass Shipping. The city’s tensions were finally bursting free. From what Saketa could tell during the drive, there were dozens of simultaneous police operations, striking at Purist cells. The scum were being loaded into vehicles by armoured officers at semi-chaotic scenes. The true chaos belonged to the various Tanga warrior outfits, who substituted procedure and technology for simply dragging the objects of their scorn out into the streets and beating them, as people watched from windows and balconies and rooftops.

Perhaps the cells had at last formally been declared a criminal organisation. Perhaps they were considered guilty by association for that great, big shipment of smuggled plasma. Perhaps the authorities were simply putting an end to the whole mess and the formal justifications would come later.

Saketa didn’t know. The news broadcast that Vanaka insisted on listening to during the drive theorised about collusion between the police and the Tangas, or whether one had seized the moment once the other one got started. But no one knew, and it would probably be days before the dust settled and any kind of clarity was established. Saketa didn’t spend energy on analysing the events playing out around her. By the time they settled the battle of Ciinto Res would have been decided, so that was where her mind dwelt.

Fredrak called ahead, and it no doubt saved them a few minutes after Losan brought the rental car to a stop by the Fass Shipping headquarters. A boss of some sort received them within the gate, in front of the main building’s main door.

None of the employees had ever gotten a look at any of them before, save for Saketa herself, and that had been briefly, in poor lighting. In the car she had borrowed a scarf from Vanaka’s travelling case and wrapped it around her head as something of a disguise, and now just kept to the back of the group as Fredrak did the talking.

There were no doubt all sorts of subtleties that could be brought to a situation like this; cover stories, research and perhaps a cargo. But they were down to forty-nine hours, and so the agent spoke as plainly as he could without giving their purpose away.

She didn’t pay attention to the details that went on between the two men. She kept an eye out, watching the guards who in turn watched her back, and she noticed that Losan was, of course, doing the same.

In moments when traffic was at its most quiet, one could hear a cacophony of voices and fighting, off in the distance. The spectre of chaos put people on edge like practically nothing else, and the shipping employees were no exception. Any suspicion aroused was quite likely to get blown wildly up.

“Right this way,” Fredrak said, and started walking after the man he’d been talking to.

Saketa had half-heard something about meeting a potential pilot, and was happy to go inside with the group. She and Losan shared a glance and reached an unspoken agreement that he would be right on Fredrak’s heels while she would bring up the rear.

Without the tension of a break-in the shipping company interior was notably only in its banality. There were offices and bathrooms and staff rooms and little janitorial bots, all of which they passed, until they’d gone all the way through the wing and exited again. It dawned on Saketa that they’d been taking the shortest route to the spot where the freighters were docked.

“Tyroya!” the man shouted at a figure tending to one of them.

Saketa felt a stab of worry. Had her assumptions been completely off? Or had the Exile simply not left yet?

Vanaka turned to look at her, and Saketa very subtly indicated her head forward. The girl understood and walked ahead to join Fredrak. She hooked her arm into his companionably, and the agent was professional enough to roll with it, even though he surely didn’t understand.

Saketa stayed in her spot in the back of the group, and started to take pains to keep people between herself and the smuggler as they walked up to the ship. She didn’t entirely understand how thorough Vylak memory-erasure was. While the woman probably didn’t remember the struggle on that rooftop, the encounter inside the nightclub might be a different matter.

Once the conversation started she continued looking about, and abandoned any subtlety about it for the sake of keeping her face averted from Tyroya. Fredrak repeated his wish for a quick exit from the planet, and the thought occurred that the crackdown made a good, unspoken cover. Until Tyroya made a counterpoint.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“You want to get to Ciinto Res?” the smuggler said, and Saketa realised she was addressing Ayna. “You want to go to an Authority stronghold?”

“It’s a paint job,” the Dwyyk said back. “Temporary.”

“Oh? Let me see your eyes.”

“No need,” Vanaka said sweetly, and out of the corner of her eye Saketa saw the girl take the woman’s arm. It was a very familiar gesture, but the smuggler didn’t mind. She might not remember the bite, but the venom still in her system sure did.

“Look, let’s just talk privately for a bit,” Vanaka went on. “We have a delicate situation. Inside the ship, perhaps?”

The words were simple, but it was the girl’s tone and demeanour that worked the magic, making use of the mild hold she already had over the smuggler.

After a brief hesitation Tyroya shrugged, said some local equivalent of “Sure” and walked with Vanaka into the ship. It was only because she was looking for it that Saketa caught the girl subtly putting her hand on Losan’s arm, signalling for him to wait.

Saketa walked up to the front of the group as the two of them vanished from sight. After their guide walked off, looking slightly nonplussed, Saketa gave Fredrak a reassuring look.

They waited, and only Saketa and Losan knew why. She found herself feeling oddly proud of the potent young woman that girl she’d met four years ago had become. She also felt a faint stab of envy at the smuggler.

“It’s getting closer,” Losan said, the first words spoken since the two had vanished.

It was. The din of the city’s reckoning could now be heard through mere relative quiet, and the surrounding tensions were growing with the volume.

What were things like on Ciinto Res, Saketa wondered?

Twin footsteps approached from inside the ship, and Saketa turned around to face the building and returned to the back of the group.

“Fine, I’ll fly you,” Tyroya said. “I’ll just need to prep the ship a little.”

“Excellent,” Fredrak said amicably. “How long will it take?”

“Half an hour maybe.”

The smuggler jogged past Saketa and to the main building, speaking on a comm as she went.

“He was here,” Vanaka said, softly enough that only their group would hear. “The ‘spooky man’ came here a few hours ago along with a teenage boy and demanded an immediate flight to Ciinto Res. She was at home at the time, so another pilot took them.”

“We are on the right track, then,” Fredrak said. “Now, let’s speak no more until we’re in the air.”

He didn’t show it, but Saketa took it as a sure thing that he was curious about Vanaka’s ability to get what she wanted from people. Given the company the girl kept, Saketa hoped, for everyone’s sake, that he would at most take it for some form of “magic”, and leave it at that.

She let herself drift a bit away from the ship, and Vanaka joined her. The girl put an arm around her shoulders, and Saketa felt both a phantom tingle in her bite spot, and a strong impulse to just lean into Vanaka like a good little pet. She fought it down, and the girl whispered into her ear.

“She knows something weird happened around that nightclub, but doesn’t remember any of it. Her bodyguards told her about a woman with crimson hair, but she doesn’t remember you.”

“Do you think it’s a problem?” Saketa asked.

“Just keep your hair covered until we’re off-planet,” Vanaka said. “Then just avoid her as best you can. I have her pretty dosed now. She won’t get hostile with you if I’m there to smooth things over.”

‘Pretty dosed’ meaning twice as dosed as I am now, Saketa thought, and patted Vanaka’s hand affectionately.

“You are insidiously useful.”

“You told me that once before,” Vanaka said.

“I thought you might like to hear it again.”

“I do,” the girl said happily. Which made Saketa happy in turn, because that was how it worked.

They separated, and waited. Saketa followed expert advice and simply kept her distance as Tyroya returned, and did not engage with the woman at all without being too obviously evasive.

By the time they took to the air, Fredrak's count was down to forty-eight hours. Saketa gazed out a narrow window in the belly of the craft, at the city she’d come to know over the last few days. There were a few columns of smoke, and she caught a couple of bright flashes down on street level. It was a far cry from devastation, but the whole matter would still leave scars on Yvenna’s collective psyche. She could only hope that this would all serve as a painful but needed cleansing, and that the scars would in time leave behind healthier tissue.

Tyroya passed through the necessary procedures at the docking yards, then they were up through the atmosphere and soon enough she felt the odd sensation of leaving behind a gravity well.

Then they were off into the lanes, and towards the war.